Things Change
by EmeraldMoonStar
Summary: After Sasuke leaves, Sakura is feeling worthless. She leaves and bumps into Itachi, who convinces her to join the Akatsuki. What kind of adventures will Sakura have? Multiple parings.
1. Thinking About Leaving

**Konichiwa! This is my first fic ever, so don't be evil with the reviews. This is an ItaSakuSasu fic, even though it sounded better in my head. NaruHina, SaiIno, ShikaTema, and NejiTen are also mentioned, but aren't _that _important to the plot.**

**Bold-** Either a dreaded author's note, or Inner Sakura.

''- thoughts

""- dialoge

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, but I wish I did!!**

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Haruno Sakura had changed. Yes, these two and a half years she had gone through a lot of changes. She was the strongest kunoichi in all Konoha, master in ninjutsu, genjutsu, and taijutsu. She was also the prettiest woman in Konoha, since she grew into her forehead and her beautiful, flowing pink hair was down to her mid-back. She was even chased around regularly by her fanboys. She was the best medical nin aside from Tsunade. She was the gem of all Konoha, predicted to be the Rokudaime Hokage, much to Naruto's annoyance. She seemed to live the perfect life.

But that was just a mask, hiding how she _really_ felt about her life.

Sakura was sitting on a stone bench with her chin resting on her hands, deep in thought. 'This is the same bench Sasuke-kun left me on.' She thought bitterly. 'Not much has changed since then. I still love Sasuke-kun, I'm still unhappy, and I am worthless.' Inner Sakura didn't even bother to disagree,(a shocking event in itself) because even she knew this was true. 'And I'm too weak to do anything about it.' she thought hopelessly.

**'Why don't you just leave then?'**Inner Sakura said.

'Nani?' Sakura replied dully.

**'You really should pay more attention to me! I said why not leave then?'**Inner Sakura said, annoyed.

'I can't just walk out! Then I'd be an S-rank missing nin!' Sakura exclaimed.

**'And…? Your point?'**Inner Sakura prompted.

'I can't just leave everybody!'

**'Sasuke-kun did and he broke your heart in the process. Besides, what have you got to lose?'**

'My life!' Now Sakura was the one getting annoyed. 'Now, if only I had some duct-tape…'

**'I heard that!'**Inner Sakura snapped.

Despite the fact that it was a beautiful spring day, Sakura felt miserable. She got up from the bench and started to walk home, thinking that her inner might have a point. As she looked around she saw Naruto walking with Hinata while holding her hand and laughing. Hinata was laughing too. Sakura just sighed and kept walking. 'Everyone seems so happy,' she thought, 'They don't really need me much at all. Naruto's got Hinata, Ino has finally gotten together with Sai, Shikamaru has discovered that troublesome Temari is a great girlfriend, and Neji and Tenten are practically engaged. And I'm all alone.' She trudged on slowly, just wanting to get away from all the happiness that she wasn't a part of.

She arrived at her house and went straight to her bedroom and sat on her bed. She clutched a hand to her heart. There must be something she could do to make this pain go away. But alas, no there wasn't. She'd tried healing it with all the jutsu she knew with no avail. Something just seemed to be missing in her life. There weren't even any missions lately to distract her from these thoughts. 'Come to think of it, the others are getting more missions than I am. Am I just fading into the backround?' She sighed. 'I feel like I felt when I was a genin again. Jounin aren't supposed to feel like this! There must be something wrong with me.'

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Later that night, she found her self packing her backpack. She had her portable sleeping bag, several months worth of food, a fair amount of kunai, some shuriken, healing scrolls, soldier pills, and, surprisingly, her picture of Team 7. She tied her forehead protector in its usual spot, slung her bag over her shoulders and started to walk.

She met no opposition as she reached the main entrance to Konohagakure. She paused for a moment. Only a moment to look over her shoulder to look at Konoha for one last time. Then she walked right out of the village without a second thought.

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**Ok, I know it's not good but trust me, it get's better!! And longer. This is just a tester. Now, see that button? Come on, you know you wanna press it!! I'll give you a cookie!**


	2. Sasuke's Back!

**Fortunately, I'm chockfull of ideas at the moment so there will be frequent updates. Stay tuned!**

**Disclaimer: Still don't own Naruto**

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Uzumaki Naruto groaned. It was a beautiful day, the sun was out and there was not a cloud in the sky. Sadly for him, it was shining earlier than he would've liked and was preventing him from getting back to sleep. He yawned and stretched while attempting to get up.

"I feel strangely empty inside." He mumbled. "There's only one thing to do at a time like this, eat ramen dattebayo!" That seemed to wake him up enough to run into the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator to see about fifty different types of ramen. He pulled out his personal favorite, miso ramen, and finished eating in five minutes flat. He then checked his watch.

"I overslept! I'm gonna be late for training! Sakura-chan will kill me if I'm late again!" With that, he ran out the door towards the training grounds.

When he arrived, he instantly knew something was wrong. Sakura wasn't there. Just when he was about to check her house to see if she was alright, Kakashi appeared with Sasuke?!

"Ohayo Kakashi-sensei and Sasuke-teme! Wait, Sasuke-teme?!" Naruto yelled, confused.

"Yes Naruto, Sasuke is back. He has been dropped of everything, because he didn't give away any information about Konoha and didn't do anything to oppose Konoha in any way.But Tsunade-sama decided there should still be a punishment. Sasuke can only do D-rank missions for five months." Kakashi explained.

'Being the sadist that she is' Sasuke thought bitterly.

For once, Naruto did the smart thing and didn't say anything. But that didn't stop him from snickering. Oh, he was gonna have fun with this later.

"Where's Sakura?" Sasuke said suddenly.

"I was beginning to wonder that myself." Kakashi said, slighty accusatory.

"I don't know. She wasn't here when I got here. I was just about to go check her house when you two showed up." Naruto said, souding worried.

"Alright then, it wouldn't hurt to check her house." Kakashi said.

"Off to Sakura-chan's house!" Naruto shouted. An orange blur, suspiciously shaped like Naruto, ran towards Sakura's house.

'He hasn't changed a bit.' Sasuke thought with amusement. He followed Naruto, though not quite as quickly to go to Sakura's house.

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"Sakura-chan! Open the damn door already!" Naruto yelled. His shout was heard clear across the village. It was obvious to everyone except Naruto that Sakura wasn't there. "Sasuke-teme, you try. She'll open the door for you."

With a sigh Sasuke knocked on the door. "Sakura, open up." Kakashi and Sasuke weren't surprised when they got no response.

"Well, I don't know where she could be. Ino's off on a mission along with TenTen and Hinata. She hasn't been at the library lately either. She wasn't with Tsunade-sama when we were there." Kakashi said.

"Maybe she's on a mission?" Naruto suggested.

"That is possible I suppose." Kakashi said. "Let's go ask Tsunade-sama."

They walked in silence to the Hokage Tower, each lost in his own thoughts. When they got to Tsunade's office they heard voices from behind the door.

"…believe she was able to just walk out! What happened to the security?!" yelled Tsunade. They knew better than to walk in on an angry Tsunade and, besides, this was an interesting conversation.

"Sakura was seen walking out of the gate with a backpack, but no one stopped her, assuming you sent her." Shizune explained carefully. She didn't want Tsunade angry with her. The mere thought of that sent chills down her spine.

"I see." Tsunade said thoughtfully, calming down a bit.

The guys decided it was safe to walk in, so they opened the door.

"Tsunade-baachan, Sakura-chan's gone missing!" Naruto shouted, with no tact whatsoever. Sasuke just shook his head. 'Baka.' He thought with slight annoyance.

"Yes, Naruto I know that. I was just about to send the ANBU after her when you started yelling." Tsunade said, annoyed. This whole baachan business was really getting on her nerves. Tsunade was thinking of ways to get Jiraiya back for telling Naruto that she was really 50, not 20. Closing the hot springs was sounding good...

"Oh, well send us too dattebayo! We can help and she is our team mate, after all." Naruto said, hopefully.

"No, you will just get in the way. The ANBU are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves. They know what they're doing."

"Is there anything we can do to help?" Kakashi asked.

"Yes actually. Kakashi, I need you to sort out some paperwork. Sasuke, Naruto you can go now." Sasuke, and a reluctant Naruto exited the office. They heard muffled groan from Kakashi. Apparently, there was a lot of paperwork. Naruto and Sasuke headed towards the training grounds anyways to spar with eachother, the Sakura predictament momentarily forgotten.

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'Thanks a lot, inner!' Sakura thought angrily. 'We didn't even plan where we were going to go! And the ANBU will be after us soon!' Sakura had been wandering around throughout the night. She had gotten a safe distance from Konoha and didn't know where she could go now. She had roughly travelled toward the River Country subconsciously for an unknown reason. Luck had been on her side, though. It had rained that night, and, yeah she was cold and wet, but it had erased her scent. Dogs and bugs would be of little use for her pursuers.

**'Jeez, calm down. Not like they can drag us back anyway. Just trap them in a genjutsu, throw a punch or two and we'll be fine.'** Inner Sakura assured herself.

'I am not attacking the ANBU.' Sakura stated.

**'And why not? We can beat them, easy.'** Inner Sakura said, slightly confused.

'Oh, it's not that. If I attack anyone from Konoha, I'll be considered a traitor and can never go back. I'd be on the run for the rest of my life. An exiled ninja.'

**'For leaving, we're already considered traitors and what's wrong with living life in the fast lane?'** Inner Sakura asked.

'Omai urusaiyo.'

**'Ah, thinking of Sasuke-kun?'**

'…'

**'Thought so.'**

'Shut up.'

Sakura decided she might as well go the River Country, since she was close the border anyway. The ANBU would have less power across the border, as an added bonus. She also felt drawn to it. She had no idea why, seeing as she had only passed through to get to the Hidden Village of Sand. She hadn't really been paying attention to the scenery, seeing as she was needed urgently at the time. She clutched her heart again. No, the pain was still there, and she was positive it wasn't heart disease. Maybe the River Country could help with this pain.

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"I'm worried about Sakura-chan."

"Hn."

Naruto and Sasuke had taken a break from sparring. They hadn't really made any progress and Naruto was getting hungry. And, Kami forbid, that Naruto should have to work when he's hungry. They were sitting under a tree eating their lunches. Naruto was having pork ramen and Sasuke was nibbling on some onigiri. Despite his lack of action, or words of concern, Sasuke was worried. He didn't know how much stronger she'd gotten, so he didn't know she could handle herself, which increased his worry.

"Your sentences haven't gotten any longer. I thought all that time with Orochimaru would've taught you how to talk." Naruto said cheerfully. Pissing off Sasuke was just so much fun!

"Hn."

"Can you say anything other than hn?" an annoyed Naruto asked.

"Hn." Truthfully, though he would never admit it, Sasuke had missed Naruto. Especially pissing him off. He hadn't missed the "Dattebayo!"'s at all, though. Pissing off Kabuto had been nice, but it wasn't the same.

Naruto stopped talking for a bit and focused on his ramen. Once he had finished and got every last drop, he tried to start a conversation again. This time, Sasuke was more willing to talk.

"Are you worried?" Naruto said suddenly.

Sasuke looked up from his onigiri. "About what?" He asked.

"What do you mean 'about what'? Teme, you've really turned into such a baka. About Sakura-chan of course!"

"I guess I am a little." He replied.

Naruto knew that, in Sasuke language, that meant 'I'm practically dying with worry! I need to know she's safe _now_!' Naruto was curious about this. The Sasuke he knew never worried about anything, let alone Sakura. It was common knowledge that Sasuke found Sakura annoying and never hesitated to tell her so. Then, suddenly, it hit him. It had taken him years to get it, like that Hinata fainted because she liked him, but he finally understood.

"You love Sakura-chan.' Naruto said quietly.

Sasuke very nearly choked on his onigiri and started having a coughing fit. That was bad enough, seeing as Uchiha's don't choke, especially not onigiri. After he'd gotten a hold of himself and his windpipe was free of onigiri, he made his thoughts very clear.

"Nani?! Have you completely lost what's left of your mind?! Where the hell did you get that idea from?!" yelled Sasuke.

Naruto knew that he had won now. The fact that Sasuke was so defensive had proved it, in Naruto's mind. Three whole sentences from Sasuke at once was practically a miracle, unless they were on a mission.

"So you don't deny it?" Naruto asked, simply. This also struck Naruto as odd.

"Of course I don't love Sakura! How could I love her? She has pink hair for Kami's sake! She's an unlovable creature, a mere pest. She's annoying." Sasuke said angrily. Where was the dobe getting these ideas?!

"Don't say such horrible things about Sakura-chan! She's not even here to defend herself! You coward!" Naruto shouted. He knew that was crossing the line, but nobody would insult his friends!

"Don't you dare call me a coward." Sasuke said quietly.

"Alright, alright! No need to get all 'you will die in ten days' on me!" Naruto decided to drop the Sakura topic. Hit Sasuke when he's not expecting it(or drunk) and Naruto might get him to let something slip. 'I need a new plan.' Naruto thought.

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Tsunade slammed her fist down on her desk. Good thing it wasn't infused with chakra, or she'd need a new desk.

"What do you mean you couldn't find her?!" She yelled at the ANBU member.

"It rained making her scent untrackable and she covered her tracks. If Sakura doesn't want to be found, it will be next to impossible to find her. Then we'd have to get her to come back which is another battle in itself." He explained timidly. This was not what Tsunade wanted to hear.

"Did you try absolutely everything in your power to find something to track her by?"

"Yes, there's nothing else we can do. We have tried everything we can think of but have had no clues on her whereabouts."

Tsunade sighed. She had really gotten attached to her apprentice over the years. She put on hands on her temples. There was only one thing left to do. She would have to do this the old-fashioned way. She inwardly groaned. 'This is going to take awhile.' she thought miserably.

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**Cliffy!! Please don't eat me!! I'm not a cookie!! See that button? See that mouse? See that keyboard? Enough said. Yup another short one, but these are just tasters. Yeah yeah I know there hasn't been much romance yet and Itachi hasn't made an appearance. Good things take time!**


	3. Chance Meeting

**The story starts to unfold now...Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: Naruto isn't mine**

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There it was, the River Country. It was like base for Sakura, a safe place where no one will drag her back to Konoha. She stood on the cliff, admiring the view for a few minutes. The sun was setting over the River Country and it looked absolutely dazzling. The fiery red and pale orange reflected in the water, the soft fluffy pink clouds, and everything seemed so peaceful. Sakura sighed. This was the perfect place to think things over without interruptions, most of the previous ones were caused by a certain loud, blonde ninja who wears orange.

**'Told you this was a good idea'**

Sakura sighed. Her inner loved to ruin the peace. She also never failed to notice when she was right. She decided to camp there for the night. Entering a village at night would not be a good idea at this point. She curled up in her sleeping bag. ' I should've done this a long time ago. I already feel at peace and I haven't done anything yet.' She thought happily.

**'And this is why you should listen to me.'** Inner Sakura said in a pompous tone.

With a smile on her face, Sakura fell asleep, much to her inner's annoyance.

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Sakura woke up to see a bright, sunny day. "Mmmmm," she murmured, "Even the day is happy for me." Once she had gotten up and had breakfast, she prepared to enter the village. She made she it looked like she had never been there by smoothing over dirt in some places and such. She then completed the cover up.

"Henge!"

Once the puff cloud of smoke had dissipated it revealed a girl that looked very similar to Sakura. She had the same facial features, other than a slightly smaller forehead. Her hair, though, instead of being light pink was black. Uchiha black to be precise.

**'Awe, so you do still think about him.'** Inner Sakura teased.

'I'm choosing to ignore that or you'd be getting a chakra filled mental slap.'

**'Ok, sheesh!'**

Her outfit was similar to the one she wore in her genin days. Only this time the shorts were dark red and went to a bit below the mid-thigh. The dress had thick straps, no sleeves and was jet black. She replaced the white circles with red swirls. She kept her black boots on, seeing as she couldn't bother transforming her shoes. She admired herself in her reflection off of the stream nearby. She nodded, assured that this was enough of a disguise, seeing as she wasn't really trying that hard. Just enough to be looked over in a crowd, really. As for her name, she had one ready, Nara Mikoto. Nara because Shikamaru was a good friend of hers and is clan wasn't all that well known. Mikoto because that was Sasuke's mother's name and she wanted to honor her in a way.

With that, she started walking towards the village, without a care in the world.

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"You can't be serious Tsunade-baachan!" Exclaimed Naruto.

Tsunade sighed. She hated going back on her word, but this was an emergency. She was sending Naruto and Sasuke to go to the nearby villages and ask for any information they had on Sakura. It wasn't a D-rank, like what Sasuke should be doing, but a C-rank. This way of gathering information always took awhile and with Naruto…If she wasn't out of other ninja to do this, Naruto and Sasuke would be out of the question.

"Sadly, I am Naruto. If the current situation were better, you'd be walking dogs with Sasuke." She said with a slight smirk.

"How far should we go?" Sasuke asked.

"_You_ are not leaving the Fire Country. Naruto would normally be able to, but since he's with you he can't leave either." She said.

"Teme! You ruin everything!" Naruto yelled.

"Well? Get going already! Time is not on your side!" Tsunade shouted.

"Hai." Answered Sasuke with a small nod. With that he walked out the door, dragging Naruto by the collar with the blond wailing all the way.

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Sakura was sitting on a large, flat rock outside of the village. She had had no problems entering. No one even gave her a second glance, but she had the eerie feeling that she was being watched. It didn't feel like ANBU or anyone who wanted to drag her back to Konoha, but it still made her suspicious. She had bought a room at the local hotel and had unpacked. Afterwards, she left to go on a walk to help sort out her thoughts, which lead her to a meadow.

'That's not what she really looks like. She used a transformation jutsu on herself.'

Sakura suddenly saw a figure approaching her. She was about to go into a fighting stance when Inner Sakura stopped her.

**'Baka! You're not Sakura remember? Don't fight everyone that walks towards you!'** Inner Sakura yelled.

'Samimasen, I guess I'm a bit jumpy.' Sakura apologized.

**'So that's what you call it…'**

Sakura immediately went back to what she was doing, while watching the figure out of the corner of her eye. It kept walking until she could finally see who it was. If the black cloak with red clouds wasn't a dead giveaway, the eyes were.

'Uchiha Itachi!?'

**'Umm… you know despite me being the smarter one here, I'm just as confused as you are.'**

'You really must want to be slapped.' Sakura threatened.

Itachi stopped right in front of her. Sakura looked up, as though she just realized he was there. Well, she'd have to think of a new name since Itachi is from Konoha and would immediately know that she was lying.

"Can I help you?" She asked sweetly.

He wasn't expecting that. He could see right through her jutsu and knew she was Haruno Sakura. The fact that she wasn't attacking him was earth-shattering but being nice? 'She is…odd.' He thought.

"Oh no, you just looked like you needed cheered up is all." He answered innocently.

That caught her completely off guard. The fact that the Itachi was in front of her was strange enough but trying to cheer up a random stranger? 'What is going on? Why would a mass murderer try to cheer up a stranger?' She thought. 'He is obviously up to something. I'll play his little game in order to find out.'

Inner Sakura said boastfully,** 'Glad I thought of it.'**

"You read my mind." She smiled appreciatively.

"Mind telling me about it?" He asked, genuinely intrigued that a girl like her would be unhappy. As far as he could tell, she usually seemed to be pretty cheerful. He sat down beside her on the boulder and faced her, looking slightly worried.

"Not at all." She said gladly, "Let me know if I'm boring you."

"Will do." He said jokingly while having no intention of doing so. Sakura then proceeded to tell him everything. She didn't use any names, for her friend's sakes, and she did not mention Sasuke. Mentioning Sasuke would not be a good idea, seeing as she didn't know his personality was like, but she did tell him how no one had come looking for her. How she had been alone with no one to comfort her. How she had a wound that refused to be healed. How she was slowly fading out of existence. He listened silently, nodding occasionally at appropriate moments. When she finished her tale, he looked at her, eyes full of concern.

"You wanna grab something to eat and talk?" He asked suddenly.

Once again, she was caught off guard. **'That's been happening a lot lately.' **Inner Sakura commented. What was with his sudden interest in her? She didn't have a horn sprouting out of her forehead did she? She couldn't possibly be that interesting. But, Sakura's stomach got the better of her. After all, being on the run does make one hungry.

"That would be…nice." She said slightly shyly.

"I know of the perfect place to go!" He replied brightly.

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"People won't tell ya anything!" said a tired Naruto. The two of them had been asking and showing people a picture of Sakura all day. No one had seen or heard anything. Most people weren't even willing to tell the two shinobi that much. The two were currently in an inn, resting. Sasuke was massaging his temples with his fingers while thinking hard.

"Did something happen to make Sakura want to leave?" Sasuke questioned Naruto.

"Not that I can think of. I haven't seen much of Sakura-chan lately, I've been with Hinata-chan." Naruto replied, "She did seem kinda down, but I have no idea what about."

"What has she been doing since I've been away?"

"Well, at first, a lot of crying. (Sasuke winced almost invisibly at this) Then she started training under Tsunade-baachan. When I was with Ero-sennin, she said she had also trained with Kurenai-sensei and Gejunmaiyou-sensei to improve her genjutsu and taijutsu. Her personality changed a tiny bit to more like Kurenai-sensei's. Luckily, she didn't start acting like Gejunmaiyou-sensei. She might be stronger than you dattebayo!"

Sasuke ignored that last bit while he was trying to piece this all together. Something was missing. There were blank spots, major blank spots. Even Sasuke's keen and penetrating mind had come to no conclusion. Heck, Shikamaru probably couldn't do it. The only thing he could come up with was that she might have been lonely, but that really didn't make much sense, because she had Ino. Sakura never seemed the type to just pick up and leave over nothing. Ugh, all this thinking was giving him a headache.

"What's with the sudden interest in Sakura-chan?" Naruto said carefully. Extracting this information out of Sasuke was going to be hard. Naruto would probably have more luck finding out Kakashi's darkest secret. Naruto, being, well, Naruto had to try. 'Sasuke's gonna have to say it sometime.' He thought. 'Might as well be now.'

"It isn't that sudden and she's my friend and team mate. I should be concerned." Sasuke stated simply.

'Ok, so spilled more than he intended. He's cared about her for a while and admits he's concerned. That's a start.' Naruto thought happily. He was actually pretty smart if he put his mind to something. Having gotten what he wanted, he didn't press the subject.

"Sasuke-teme, where should we check next?" Naruto asked. Out of the two of them, Sasuke would know.

"My guess is that she doesn't want to be found because she is covering her tracks. She is probably headed towards the border of the River Country. We should check villages near the border." Sasuke answered wisely. 'Now why would she not want to be found?' he thought. 'I doubt she hates her birthday that much.' It was true. In one week was Sakura's birthday, March 28th. Secretly, Sasuke had bought her a gift. The Sakura he remembered loved her birthday. Something major must have happened to her.

"Did something major happen to her?"

Naruto thought for a moment before replying. "Other than you leaving and her parents dying, no."

Aa, so it _was_ his fault. It was his fault Sakura had vanished. She probably waited 2 years to make sure she was strong enough to fend for herself. That made sense. Surely, there must be _something_ he could do?

Sasuke suddenly got up and went up the stairs to his room. Naruto was slightly surprised but didn't do anything. Annoying an Uchiha with a headache was never a good idea. It took Sasuke hours to fall asleep. He could practically hear Naruto's snoring through the wall. When Sasuke had finally fallen asleep it was full of dreams of Sakura dying and it being his fault. He woke about five times in a cold sweat.

'What is happening to me?'

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The past six nights Sakura had been going out to dinner with Itachi. He was really quite the gentleman. He was always polite, interested in what she said and told her a bit about himself (not the whole murdering his clan thing, he assumed she knew that). This time, he had said it was a formal dinner and that she need to dress formally. Sakura had gone out and bought a dress that afternoon. It was a dark red dress with thin spaghetti-straps. It had a cocktail dress hemline that ended a little below the knee. She also bought some strappy black stilettos and some simple black jewellery to wear with it. She put her transfigured hair into an elegant updo with two chopsticks holding it up. She also applied some black eyeliner and mascara to make her light green eyes really pop. After deciding she looked acceptable, she left her room to go meet Itachi. Sakura was walking towards the restaurant he had told her to go to tonight when she saw him outside. He was wearing a standard tuxedo and looked very handsome. She walked up to him and greeted him cheerfully when he leaned forward and whispered, "You don't need to use that jutsu anymore." directly in her ear. Sakura let out a gasp.

"How long have you known?" she asked quietly.

"Since the first time I saw you," he admitted, "I wondered whether you'd tell me or not."

"I was going to tell you when the time was right." She said defensively.

**'Liar.'**

"You don't need to use jutsu to hide your appearance. You're beautiful as you are and I will make sure no one will take you away. That's a promise." He said, meaning every word.

Sakura was speechless. Inner Sakura was speechless. After about half a minute of silence, Sakura bowed her head and let the jutsu stop. Her forehead went back to its usual size and her hair went back to its light pink. 'She looks in more beautiful without the jutsu.' Itachi thought awestruck. Itachi then offered her his arm. She looked up at him before smiling and taking his arm and walking into the restaurant.

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Naruto awoke to being whipped by a pillow. "Shemata, just five more minutes." The sleepy blond muttered. The response he got was being splashed with water by Sasuke. Naruto ignored him, and rolled over. Sasuke was starting to get annoyed and simply punched him while saying that Hinata started kissing Chouji. That did the trick.

"Where is Chouji? I'm gonna kill him, dattebayo!" Naruto yelled furiously jumping out of bed, ready to attack.

"Dobe. Well now that you're finally up we can leave." said Sasuke.

Naruto began to pack angrily. How dare that teme!? Sasuke was going to pay dearly for this. Naruto suddenly had a sneaky little idea pop into his head and like many of his prank ideas, it just wouldn't go away.

Oh the joys of two shinobi in a bad mood. Sasuke, from lack of sleep and thinking he has gone insane. Naruto, from being tricked so easily by Sasuke. The two walked in silence, fuming. This lasted for a while until they neared the border. If possible, Sasuke got even more annoyed. He felt that, for some reason, Sakura had crossed the border. He couldn't explain the feeling. He just sensed it.

"Naruto? Do you feel like Sakura is in the River Country?" Sasuke asked.

"You too, huh? Yeah. But we can't cross the border on Tsunade-baachan's orders." Naruto replied sadly.

"Then why don't we go to the nearest village this side of the border and see if Sakura's been there?" Sasuke suggested.

Naruto sighed. This mission was taking way too long and they were getting nowhere fast. Luckily for them, the village was only about twenty minutes away. They went the rest of the distance in silence. When they arrived, they spent the rest of the day asking whether anyone had see Sakura. Late that evening, they finally had success. A farmer had seen her passing through his field near the edge. He said she was headed toward the border, but didn't do anything odd. Seeing as this only confirmed their suspicions, they decided to head back to Konoha and report to the Hokage.

When they had set up camp for the night, Naruto decided to ask again.

"Sasuke?" He started slowly.

"Mm?" Sasuke was lying on his back with his head on his hands, gazing up at the stars.

"What do you think about Sakura-chan?" He asked carefully.

Sasuke sat up and rested his head on his knees. "What I think about her?" He questioned.

"Yeah, like she's funny, she's powerful, just what you think." The blond explained, practically dying to hear Sasuke's answer.

Sasuke looked up at the stars again. "She's smart, kind-hearted, from what you tell me, strong, hilarious, caring, beautiful, and just amazing." He said with a dreamy look on his face. Then he realized, too late, what he had done. He had a look of horror on his face. Naruto appeared to have fallen asleep, much to Sasuke's relief. 'I can't believe the dobe almost heard that.' He thought frantically. Satisfied that Naruto heard nothing, he fell asleep.

What Sasuke didn't know was that Naruto heard every word and was too speechless to say anything. 'I knew it. I so knew it. He loved her all along and she has no idea.' Naruto smiled and also feel asleep. He had pleasant pink and blue wedding filled dreams.

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**Yay got Itachi in there and some romance! Poor Sasuke! PLease review! Reviewing isn't that hard!! Still have plenty of cookies!**


	4. Explainations

**Due to an evil mom and bored friend, I haven't been on the computer much, so I couldn't post an update. Thanks to everyone who reviewed!! I hope you liked your cookie! Yeah, some of you might notice that Kikimandai might resemble Galadriel from Lord of the Rings a bit. She is an OC that I own.**

**Disclaimer: Why do I even bother typing this bit?! You should know I don't own Naruto! The only thing I do own is the story and Kikimandai.**

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Sasuke was miserable. He had returned from his mission with Naruto about a week ago. There had been no news on Sakura and people were beginning to lose hope, even Naruto. The fact that the woman he loved was missing was bad enough, but it got worse. There had been sightings of Itachi near the River/Fire border. Because of Tsunade's punishment, Sasuke couldn't go after him, either. And if there was one second when Sasuke wasn't thinking about Sakura, someone would say her name and get him started all over again.

'Now I know how Sakura used to feel.' thought a bitter Sasuke. 'Being so powerless in it all. I had no idea I hurt her this much all those years ago.'

Other than Sasuke, everyone else seemed to move on with their lives, similar to when Sasuke left. Naruto had Hinata, so it's not like he had no one to talk to. Normally, Sasuke would've been training, but you can only learn so much from training alone.

The only person he could find that wasn't busy was Lee, so they went to Lee's dojo to train. Many hours later, now covered in bruises, Sasuke felt that he had accomplished nothing.

There was only one thing left that he could do, other than wait five months. He would have to pay a visit to Kikimandai.

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Sakura arrived at her hotel room late that night. She had had a great time with Itachi. It was the best food she had ever eaten, and she didn't have constantly worry about her jutsu anymore. There was only one thing that was troubling her slightly. She had begun to notice subtle signs that Itachi had more than friendship on his mind. **'You noticed?! More like I noticed.'** An annoyed Inner Sakura reminded herself. When all Sakura was interested in was becoming friends. She didn't want a romantic relationship at the moment and, besides, she wasn't sure if she was over Sasuke or not.

And this was Uchiha Itachi, as in the one who'd killed his whole clan except for his younger brother. Sakura was pretty sure it wasn't out of the kindness of his heart that Sasuke was spared either. There's no telling what he was up to. The fact that he seemed to know her name before she'd told him had her worried. How much exactly did he know about her? Let's see; Her name, the fact that she'd left Konoha, the types of jutsu she knew, the one she wasn't as good at… Shit.

**'I tried to stop you, you know.'** Said Inner Sakura.

'Funny, I remember you being the one telling me that he was alright!' Said a not amused Sakura.

**'Yelling at me won't change anything. We need to think of what to do.'** Inner Sakura said logically.

'Even though it makes me feel better.' Sakura said thoughtfully, 'Anyway, what can we do? We can't just run away, that won't solve anything.'

**'No it won't.'** Inner Sakura agreed. **'Maybe we should just, you know, let things play out, so that we will find out what's really going on.'**

'Do I really have much choice?' Sakura asked dully.

**'Nope, you'll just have to listen to me.'** Said Inner Sakura.

'Oh dear.'

**'I heard that!'** snapped Inner Sakura.

Sakura then proceeded to get dressed into her pajamas and lay down in bed. Yes, letting things play out did sound dangerous. If she did that, she'd eventually find out what Itachi wanted with her. He hadn't told her to meet him again that night, so she didn't know if she would even see him again. Despite all these red flags, she did feel like she was bonding with him, as a friend. It felt like she'd known him before they'd actually met. It was strange.

With those troubling thoughts on her mind, Sakura rolled over and fell into a light sleep.

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When she woke up, she found a slip of paper on the floor by her door, as though it had been slid underneath to get inside.

'Meet me at the rock where we first met, I have something to ask you.

Itachi'

'That's strange,' Sakura thought, 'I wonder what he would want to ask me that he couldn't last night.' Nevertheless, she prepared to get dressed. This time, she had some kunai, shuriken, and some scrolls hidden in different spots in her clothing, just to be sure. As for the soldier pills, she just stuck the bag of those in her pocket. She brushed her hair and made herself look presentable, but able to fight at a moments notice. She brought her backpack with her, just because she had a feeling she'd need it. After double-checking that she had everything with her, she slipped on her shoes and walked out the door.

As she walked to that meadow, she was deep in thought, thinking over the possible outcomes of the meeting. She arrived at the meadow sooner than she'd expected. She looked over and saw Itachi sitting on the boulder, waiting for her. He looked the same as always, other than, this time, he'd brought his hat. It looked like a normal straw hat, other than the blinds hanging from the hat hid his face. There were also some bells on it. 'Looks like he's leaving to go somewhere soon.' She thought curiously.

When Itachi spotted her, he stood up and beckoned her to come over. He noticed as she walked over, something was different with her. It took him a second to place his finger on it. 'Her walk.' He finally decided. 'There is something about her walk. Like she's wearing different clothes, but she's not.' He thought confused. 'She has weapons hidden in her clothing.' He smirked. 'She doesn't trust me. Smart girl.'

She saw Itachi smirk suddenly. That unnerved her a bit. She didn't like that look in his eyes. 'He must know,' she thought. 'I didn't do a good enough job of concealing my emotions. That was the one thing I could never do very well.'

**'Yes, and the ones that were concealed were taken out of me!'** Inner Sakura said indignantly.

'Not now. This is not the time to get edgy.'

**'You're right, for once. I'll tell you all about my feelings later.'**

'If there is a later.' Sakura reminded her darkly. It was just the way he way he had looked at her. Not as though he wanted to kill her exactly, it was something different.

"Ohayo, Sakura, looking as lovely as ever." He greeted her.

"Ohayo indeed, Itachi." She replied. She decided to get straight to the point. "What was it that you needed to ask me?"

"Ah, well," he started. He sat down on the rock and motioned her to do the same. She sat down carefully beside him. "I'm sure that you know that I am in the Akatsuki," she nodded, not liking where this was going. "And, you see, after Orochimaru left, we were short a member and the group techniques we use work better with ten people, not nine.' He continued, " Not that any of us really missed Orochimaru. After all, Sasori was spying on him for awhile." Now things were going to get tricky for Itachi. If he didn't say this just right, he would have to use methods that really would rather not. "It is getting time for me to go back to them, and..." he paused and took her hand in his own. She didn't pull away, just looked at him curiously. " I'd like to take you with me." He said finally. He looked at her, waiting for her answer. When he got none, he decided to add; "I think you'd make a great addition to the Akatsuki. You can rest assured that you would never fade out of existence."

"J-Join the Akatsuki?" she stuttered.

Sakura was in shock. He wanted to take her to the Akatsuki?! Not just take her there, but for her to join!? Inner Sakura had collected herself before her outer. **'Ah, so that's what he was up too.'** Then, suddenly realizing the severity of the situation, she had a bit more to say. **'Join the Akatsuki? Has he completely lost his mind? There is no way we'd even consider such an atrocity!'**

"I'll go." Sakura said quietly.

She may look calm on the outside, but there was a war going on in her head. **'WHAT?!'** Inner Sakura screamed. **'You've completely lost _your_ mind!'**

'No, I'm perfectly sane.' Sakura replied.

While Itachi had been talking, Sakura had suspected that this had something to do with the Akatsuki, though it had still surprised her. She had thought it over without telling her inner. She had felt like she had been missing out on something in life. Maybe this was the way to heal that pain in her heart. Besides, the Akatsuki themselves hadn't done anything too horrible. The horrible stuff was the individual members pasts. She was also fairly confident that she could escape if she wanted to.

"I see you've brought you're belongings." Itachi commented. "When you're ready, we'll leave." Despite his cool attitude, Itachi was surprised she'd said yes without any convincing. He'd thought he might have to take her forcefully, but this was much more convenient.

"Hai, lead the way Itachi…san."

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'I must really be desperate if I'm going to Kikimandai,' Sasuke thought. Sasuke was heading towards the edge of the village to where Kikimandai was currently staying. Kikimandai was a very special case. She was too frail to become a shinobi, so she mostly stayed at home. She scared the villagers too much to go outside often. People rarely visited her, but she had struck up a friendship with Sasuke. She also had this special pool. No, not the kind you swim in and it was much too small for that anyway. It could show you what a person was up to at that moment, anyone you thought of that was alive. It also could show things that were, things that are, and some things that hadn't yet come to pass. She could control what the pool showed and was the only one who could see what others were doing at the current time. All in all, a very powerful ability.

Sasuke knocked on her door. Her house looked as normal as any other house on the outside, as did the inside, but the was a certain aura around it. Not physical, but the kind you can sense emotionally. Even the emotional ice-cube could feel it. Kikimandai answered the door with a smile.

"Sasuke-sama! What a pleasant surprise!" she exclaimed.

"Nice to see you too. I need your help." He said.

"Well, come in. I sensed that you were troubled. This is about Sakura-sama, correct?" Kikimandai was also able to sense people's emotions, but seeing as some normal people can do that, it didn't count as an ability, though it suited her well. She walked gracefully to her pool. "You want to know where she is, don't you, Sasuke-sama?" she asked.

"Yes, if it's not too much trouble." He said politely.

Kikimandai smiled and walked to the edge of the pool. She closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, they were a dark lavender color and the water in the pool seemed to be rippling. Sasuke couldn't see anything in the pool, even with his Sharingan. Kikimandai saw more than little ripples. She saw Sakura sitting with Itachi, talking. She couldn't hear the conversation, because her jutsu wasn't that powerful. She then noticed Itachi and Sakura stand up and walk away together.

Her eyes slowly went back to their usual onyx color. She tucked a dark brown lock of hair behind her ear, then sighed. 'Sasuke-sama will not be happy with this news.' She thought. 'I wish there was something I could do to help him.'

"Sasuke-sama…" she started slowly. "She is travelling with your br…Itachi." she corrected herself.

Sasuke looked livid, no, murderous. It took all of Kikimandai's concentration not to tremble from the look on his face. "She's travelling with him?!" Sasuke said dangerously. Then he remembered his manners. "Arigato, Kikimandai. I must go meet with Hokage-sama now."

"Sasuke-sama…" she started sadly.

"Ja ne." He said and flew out the door.

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'ITACHI!! Why in hell would she be with Itachi?! He'll kill her if she does anything! He'll probably kill her even if she didn't do anything!'

If Sasuke was worried before, he was about to have a heart attack now. He was running full speed to Tsunade to tell her this news. What was Sakura thinking? Was she even thinking? What if he had placed her under genjutsu? Oh, the possibilities were too horrible for Sasuke to even think about.

When he got to her office, he burst in, much like Naruto would. "Hokage-sama! Sakura is travelling with Itachi!" he told her quickly.

"Nanda?!" she asked. She hadn't caught all that and besides, it's not everyday Sasuke burst unexpectedly into her office. Usually Naruto did that.

"Sakura. Itachi. Travelling. Together." He said slowly.

"Shizune! Get some ANBU here immediately! Get Jiraiya and Kakashi too! Uchiha, tell me everything!" she ordered.

Shizune ran out of the room to collect the said people. Sasuke changed the story to where he was just visiting and that she decided to check on Sakura while he was there.When Sasuke had finished, Tsunade sat there looking at him for a minute. 'Ah,' she thought 'So he does care.'

"Where is she?" she asked him.

"The River Country." He replied.

Just then, Shizune rushed in followed by several ANBU, Jiraiya and Kakashi. She was panting slightly, as though she'd had to run quite awhile to find everyone. Kakashi, for once, wasn't reading one of his Icha Icha books.

"Your mission is to go to the River Country and find Sakura. She's been seen with Itachi, so be careful if you do find her. Once you find her, you are to bring her back." Tsunade said commandingly.

"But Hokage-sama," an ANBU replied, "We couldn't find any trace of her last time. I doubt we'll be able to this time, either."

Tsunade looked irritated. "Then look for signs of Itachi. That would lead you to her. Dismissed!"

Everyone ran out of the room, other than Tsunade, Shizune, Kakashi, Jiraiya and Sasuke.

"Uchiha! What are you waiting for? Go find Sakura already!"

"Hai." Sasuke left the room and ran after the others. This was not what he had been expecting. He was supposed to be doing D-rank missions, and this one was at least A, probably even S-rank. He'd been surprised that Tsunade let him go on this mission. He'd have to bring Sakura back, and kill Itachi while he was at it.

Kakashi and Jiraiya weren't going to have such an exciting afternoon. "Since you two have been peeping in the hotsprings, _your_ mission is to fill out _all_ my paperwork." Tsunade said with a smirk.

"No!!"

Sasuke caught up with the rest of the group just outside the village gate. They began jumping in the trees towards the River/Fire border. It would take about a day to reach it. Sasuke was determined that he would rescue Sakura, even if it was the last thing he'd ever do.

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**Yay, another chapter finished!! Itachi's OOCness had been explained!! Just so you know, the more reviews I get, the more motivated I am to updates, so PLEASE REVIEW!!**


	5. Betrayals of Trust and Loss of Memories

**Another update! Thanks to all the reviewers! You have no idea how much I appreciate it!! Now don't kill me if Konan is OOC because I have no idea where to get manga in this town, and therefor, haven't read it. Until she appears on TV, I won't know what her personality is like. I guessed with Tobi, since I saw him in 1 episode and he was annoying Deidara. Anywho, hope you like it!**

**Disclaimer: Nothing changed since the last one, meaning Naruto isn't mine.**

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"This is it, isn't it?"

"Hn."

Itachi and Sakura had arrived at the Akatsuki hideout in the Country of River. It had only taken them a few hours, since they'd been nearby. Turns out Itachi's conversation skills weren't much better than his brother's, when he wasn't trying to convince somebody of something. Much to Sakura's horror, the hideout looked like a replica of Orochimaru's. Thoughts of Sasuke instantly filled her head.

**'EEEEKKK!! Make it stop! I'm drowning! Not enough room!'** Inner Sakura screeched. There were so many memories of Sasuke that there was hardly any room in Sakura's mind for anything else.

Itachi lifted the boulder (like Deidara did in Shippuden) and let her inside. She saw a dimly lit hallway with identical doors on both sides. He led her through several hallways that looked identical to Sakura, but he knew where he was going. He stopped in front of one of the doors and unlocked it. It was revealed to be another dimly lit room with a bed, desk, and a dresser. Not exactly a five star room.

"Gomen about the accommodations, but this will have to work for now." Itachi apologized. "I'll have to lock you in here for safety precautions. I'll let you out when it's time to eat."

"Okay."

Sakura walked in and Itachi closed the door. She heard a little click, so she knew it was locked. She began to unpack slowly. 'Well, it's not as nice as I thought it would be, but it's not too horrible. At least I don't have to room with Kisame.' She visibly shuddered. Naruto had told her all about his encounter with Kisame. From what she had heard, he was creepy. She decided that she should try to sleep, since there was little else to do. She laid down on her bed, which was surprisingly soft and quite comfortable. She fell into a light sleep after a couple minutes.

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"Find out how long until we have to perform the jutsu."

"No problem."

Sakura awoke to the sound of a key turning into the lock. Her face was tearstained and she was trembling from the nightmare she'd had. A girl popped her head in to see whether Sakura was awake or not. Realizing that she was, the girl walked in. Seeing Sakura's appearance, she changed her mind about how she was going to go about this.

"Are you alright?" she asked

"W-Who are you?" Sakura asked nervously. Itachi hadn't mentioned a girl with blue hair with an origami flower, actually he hadn't mentioned any of them at all, besides names.

"Konan. You're Sakura right?"

Sakura nodded.

"Now, tell me what's wrong."

Sakura told Konan that she kept thinking about a friend of hers that had left and went to an evil person to make him more powerful and to complete one of his goals, since Konan seemed trustworthy and they would be working together soon. She didn't use Sasuke's name and didn't give any details, but Konan didn't ask for any. She also told her about the pain in her chest. When she'd finished, Konan was looking at her thoughtfully.

"Well, as girls, and ones with unique hair colors, we need to stick together. I assure you that that pain will be gone soon. We know a way to get rid of it. It's not time to eat yet, so I can 't let you out." Konan said.

"Well, ok." Sakura replied uncertainly. 'Now, what on earth was that about?' she thought confused. Little did Sakura know, that talk would affect the rest of her life.

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It was late at night and Sasuke couldn't sleep. He'd been travelling all day with the ANBU at top speed. Yeah, it had been tiring but Sasuke had an unbelievable amount of stamina, so he wasn't really tired much at all. The thought of Itachi murdering Sakura kept him going. Sakura meant too much to him for him to let her go without a fight. It drove him to want to kill Itachi even more. There was no way Sasuke could sleep at a time like this. One of the ANBU approached him nervously.

"Sas-Uchiha-san, do you have any more information on where Sakura-sa, Sakura might be?" she said, making several mistakes when it came to names.

Sasuke wasn't one to be fooled by a mask, but, he would admit, it had surprised him a bit. "Kikimandai, why are you here?" he asked calmly.

"Was it really that obvious, Sasuke-sama?"

"It wouldn't have been if you hadn't almost called me Sasuke-sama." He replied.

"Oh, well now that you know, I've come to help, since I know where the hideout is because I checked up on Sakura right before I left." She said.

"You couldn't become a shinobi because you were frail." Sasuke stated.

"I'll manage. Besides, I have more important things to worry about than my body."

'Why did she have to remind me?' he thought dismally. Sasuke still thought he was going insane from thinking about Sakura so much. She was part of the reason he came back. Picking between a child molester and Sakura hadn't been that hard. Orochimaru would just have to find another container. Sasuke wasn't sure whether Sakura being with Orochimaru would be worse than her being with Itachi. Although, Itachi had defeated Orochimaru and cut his hand off. He didn't want to find Sakura in pieces! Kikimandai placed a finger on Sasuke's forehead, then everything went black.

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When Sasuke woke up, he saw the other ANBU packing their things. He finished packing before everyone and begun to stretch. He still had an awful lot of energy left. When it was time to leave Sasuke was near the front of the formation. Kikimandai was next to him, but he didn't know that because he didn't memorize which mask she was behind. She was thinking hard, trying to remember exactly how to get to the Akatsuki hideout. Her eyes turned violet as she remembered the image in her pool. Realization hit her. They were going too far north. They would pass right by the hideout.

"Yamate!" she shouted.

Everyone stopped at looked at her. "We-We're going too far north." She said shyly. "We need to change course."

They took her word for it and changed course. "You're getting awfully bold for being undercover." Sasuke commented.

"Passing right by the hideout would be a complete waste of time and I'd live to regret not saying anything." She replied calmly.

"How's she doing?" Sasuke asked suddenly.

"I-I don't know." Kikimandai said sadly. "My jutsu only works in my pool. I haven't tried it in normal water yet, so I haven't seen anything since yesterday."

"Aa."

"Don't worry Sasuke-sama. We'll bring her back."

"I'm not worried. She can take care of herself. I don't always need to protect her." He snapped.

Kikimandai stayed silent. 'Then why did you protect her time and again during missions?' she thought. She'd watched him when he was in the Land of Waves, during the Chuunin Exams, and when Orochimaru invaded. She caught a snatch of his conversation with Sakura right before he left, but she didn't watch that as not to invaded his privacy. Honestly, that boy didn't let her do much of anything. The only time she got seriously hurt was when he was unconscious, and when he woke up the first thing he says is 'Who did that to you?' Kikimandai learned early on that Sasuke was a man of actions, not words. Which would explain why everyone was having trouble keeping up with him, since he was trying to get to the Akatsuki hideout quickly, probably to protect Sakura again.

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"We need to do it now. I also highly recommend erasing her memory. It will only cause trouble later on and it is causing her a lot of pain."

"I can erase her memory now, but we have to wait a bit for the jutsu."

"Yes, we have to wait for Pein."

"I'll go take care of her memory now."

Itachi unlocked Sakura's door and opened it. She didn't appear to have done much in his absence. When she noticed him, she looked at him. "Sakura, you need to come with me, now." He said.

"Hai, Itachi-san." She said, getting up to follow him.

He led her through several hallways. He was walking quite fast, so Sakura had to jog to keep up. They walked (and jogged) in silence. 'Where would Itachi-san be taking me? It's awfully early to eat.' She thought. **'Maybe he's taking you to a romantic spot.'** Inner Sakura said hopefully.

'…'

**'…'**

'…'

**'Nani? You're not hitting me.'**

'Nope.'

**'It's a sign of the apocalypse!'**

Itachi led her into a large room with inscriptions and scrolls all over the place. "Sit down." Itachi ordered. Sakura did so, in a large circle, similar to the one where Sasuke sat to seal off his seal. Sakura was a bit skepitcal, but she didn't say anything.

"Take your dress off."

"N-Nani?!"

"You are wearing a bra aren't you?"

"H-Hai?"

"Then what's the problem? I need to put some marks on you." Itachi explained.

Sakura sighed in relief. She thought he was going to do... bad things when he told her to take off her clothes. She wondered what kind of jutsu he was using on her, but she didn't ask. She did as she was told, with embarrassment.

"Do you always wear red?" he asked her. She was wearing a lacy red bra. Her face turned even redder than her bra. Luckily for Sakura, her shorts were short enough to where she didn't need to take them off. Itachi dipped his finger in black ink and put the symbols all over her upper body and legs. He was gentle about it and brushed her skin lightly. It made her very ticklish. It took all of her self-control not to laugh. Her face blushed so hard that it put her dark red bra to shame. Once all of the symbols were on her, he stood back and begun to say a lot of words and perform seals quickly. By the time Sakura realized what he was going to do, it was too late. The symbols began the crawl up her skin towards the middle of her forehead. Once they reached there, they faded. Sakura cried out in pain, but Itachi did nothing. He only watched and waited until all the symbols were gone. When they were, Sakura let out one last shout before falling unconscious.

Itachi put her dress back on her and swooped her up bridal style. He proceeded to carry her to her room. Unfortunately for Itachi, he saw Deidara. Deidara noticed that Sakura's dress looked awfully loose and seeing a girl in Itachi's arms wasn't something most people saw everyday. Deidara whistled loudly at the couple before running off. He knew he would be safe for about five minutes. Once Itachi put Sakura back in her room, Deidara would probably die a horrible death.

Itachi laid Sakura gently in her bed and tucked her in. Then went to go give Deidara a little talk, while strangling him. The only thing that could save Deidara from a horrible, Mangekyou Sharingan filled, death walled up to Itachi.

"Tobi found you!"

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**Yeah, yeah it's short, but I do have to go to school tomorrow, meaning updates will be less frequent. Sorry for any OOCness. Now, everyone's favorite part, the part where you review!!**


	6. The Test and Failure

**I am soooooo sorry!! I had a solo talk I had to write that was due today, so I spent my time doing that, but it turned out I didn't have to do it today. Please don't kill me for the slow update!! When it comes to Shippuuden, in the story, Sakura and Chiyo killed Sasori and all the Gaara stuff happened, but the Akatsuki don't know who killed Sasori. They never saw Sasuke. Sai had also been introduced to the Konoha 11. I have a favor to ask. Since I can't read the manga, I need you guys to tell me about the Akatsuki members' personalities. That and what everyone calls Pein if only Konan calls him that. I can't update until I know the personalities of these people! Anyway on to the story!**

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Sakura woke up about an hour later. She sat up confused. 'Now, why would I have slept this long?' She shrugged it off and got out of bed. She figured it would be time to eat soon, so she brushed her hair and changed into a clean set of clothes. She was nervous about meeting the other members of the Akatsuki. The only one she knew was Itachi and just having a persons name doesn't usually say much about them. Weasel doesn't describe Itachi very well.

She heard a small click and realized that someone was coming. She sat on her bed, looking as innocent as possible. Itachi poked his head in before fully coming in, just to make sure she was dressed.

"Time to eat."

"Hai, Itachi-san!"

Sakura leapt gracefully off of her bed and followed Itachi. He led her down the hallway quite quickly. They walked in silence. Sakura was beginning to wonder why Itachi didn't talk to her much anymore. It was as if he was a totally different person.

"We're here."

Sakura saw a spacious stone room with a large stone table with benches in the center. It was a little creepy looking and was dimly lit. The weird thing was, no one was there. It was empty. There wasn't any food there either. Now Sakura was confused.

"There's not really a lot of food, so I hope you like ramen." Itachi said.

'Ramen? What did Naruto say to Deidara while they were fighting?!' Sakura thought. This was not what she had been expecting. **'Nani, were you expecting a hero's feast?'** Inner Sakura asked.

'No, just better than ramen. Naruto made me eat the stuff so much. I'm a bit tired of it.' Sakura explained.

"Here." Itachi handed Sakura a bowl of ramen. It looked like the kind you would heat up in a microwave. "Arigato." She said gratefully, even though she didn't mean it.

"Now, I have some things I have to attend to, so you'll have to eat in your room. I'll come get you in the morning at nine. We need to see the extent of your abilities." Itachi explained.

"I'm so bad you're locking me in my room, eh?" she joked. Much to her relief, Itachi chuckled.

"It's not my idea, I would let you at least walk around a bit, but I don't make the rules." He said

"Really?" she asked. "Who does then?"

"Pein, but only Konan is allowed to call him by his name." He explained

"Oh."

"Watch out for Tobi." He added

"Tobi? Which one is he?" Sakura asked.

"The one with the black and orange swirled mask."

"What's wrong with him?"

" We're still trying to figure that out. He drives most of us nuts, but we aren't allowed to kill him, sadly." Itachi muttered the last bit of that, so Sakura didn't think he killed for sport.

"Actually, I haven't seen anyone other than you. Where is everyone? Is something big happening?" she asked, having not heard Itachi muttering.

"Where you are, no one really is in that area. We usually hang around the arena, meeting room, and our bedrooms really. Avoiding Tobi keeps us busy. Tobi sees it all as a game. He's annoying."

Sakura had been nodding her head to what he was saying, until he had said that Tobi was annoying. Something just sounded really familiar about that phrase. Sure, she'd called Naruto annoying, but it was more than that. She pushed the feeling aside.

Itachi noticed Sakura's face suddenly cloud over. He hadn't said anything offensive about her, so this surprised him. He just looked at her closely.

"You don't look like you feel well. I'll take you back to your room." He said while looking concerned. "Besides, for your test tomorrow, you need to be in top condition."

"Yeah, my head's feeling a bit funny, so I'll probably go to bed early tonight. Oh," Sakura looked down at her feet and had a small blush creep on her cheeks. "Um… before you take me to my room, there's somewhere else I'd like you to take me first…"

Luckily, Itachi got the message and showed her where that bathroom was. "I forgot to ask you about that. Gomen nasai." Itachi apologized while bowing his head a little.

"Oh, it's fine." Sakura replied. Silence fell between the two as Itachi led her to the bathroom. When they arrived, he opened the door for her and waited outside. She walked in to see a creepy looking bathroom. **'Are all these rooms creepy?'** Inner Sakura asked annoyed. Sakura had been smart and brought her stuff for her nightly routine, because she figured dinner would be her only chance to get to the bathroom. She took care of her business, washed her face, brushed her teeth and washed her hands before she came out. The whole time, she was wondering why the phrase 'He is annoying.' stuck in her head. It wasn't as though Itachi had a hidden meaning behind it. It couldn't mean much, other than the obvious.

Itachi noticed that when she came out, she looked troubled, like before. He didn't say anything, but he was suspicious. He was going to keep an eye on her.

"You ready?" he asked her.

"Hai, Itachi-san!"

He took her to her room. She thanked him and said goodnight before he locked the door. She changed into her pajamas. They were just a pair of black boxers and a pink and black t-shirt that said 'Don't mess with me.' She'd left her more girly ones at home. She set the alarm clock that Itachi had put on her dresser and crawled into bed. She fell asleep almost instantly, seeing as she was exhausted and confused.

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Sakura heard the alarm go off and groaned. She staggered over to the dresser and slammed her hand down on the alarm. After it had stopped beeping at her, she noticed that there was a bowl of cereal, a glass of milk, and some toast with butter sitting on the floor by her door along with a piece of paper. It gave her directions to the bathroom, so she could take a shower and get cleaned up for her training. It also said to wear the clothes she usually did her missions in. She thought it was odd, but didn't think much about it.

Sakura quickly gulped down her food and grabbed some clothes. She tried to open the door. To her surprise, it opened.

**'Well, duh! He wouldn't just leave you directions without letting you out!'** Inner Sakura explained while slapping her forehead. **'Hey! My forehead's shrunk! Hitting it used to be easier!'**

Sakura replied smugly, "Guess I'm not the forehead girl anymore.' With that thought cheering her up, she began to wander around, trying to find the bathroom. She made sure she left a large amount of chakra on her door to make sure she'd recognize it. Last thing she needed was to walk in on someone. She made it to the bathroom without seeing anyone. It was the same one she was in yesterday, only on the counter, there was a dark red towel, some strawberry shampoo and conditioner, along with some bodywash. There was another note; 'Thought you could use these, just don't tell Konan.'

She smirked at that one. As if on cue, she heard a very distant, "WHERE THE HELL IS MY SHAMPOO?!" By the sound of things, Sakura wouldn't be talking to Itachi anytime soon.

When Sakura finished getting cleaned up, she felt refreshed and ready to fight. She found her way back to her room to wait until Itachi came to get her. She only had to wait a couple minutes before Itachi showed up.

"You ready?" he asked her

"I've been ready." She said confidently.

"Well, alright then." Then he led her through the hallways, until she saw light. When she passed through it, she squinted a bit, since it was really bright. Once her eyes had adjusted, she realized she was in a giant arena. It had a large pool of water and plenty of sand, so practically every jutsu could be used. Realization hit her. She had to fight one of them. So what, she'd killed Sasori, but Chiyo had done most of the work. In her mind, all Sakura had managed to do was to get herself stabbed to save someone who died soon afterwards anyway. Her confidence instantly melted away.

"If you haven't figured it out already, you have to fight." Itachi said. "I'm the one that has to fight you."

Sakura felt reassured again after hearing that she had to fight Itachi. She had some experience when it came to Sharingan and fire jutsus. She couldn't remember how she knew about the Uchiha jutsus, she just did. She also knew that Itachi used genjutsu, all he had to do was look her in the eye, or even point at her. She hoped all her training with Kurenai would help her.

Itachi and Sakura stood opposite eachother. Sakura slid down gracefully into a fighting stance. Itachi just stood lazily. He decided to end this quickly; he didn't really want Sakura to have to suffer that much.

"Katon! Goukakyuu no Jutsu!"

Two massive fireballs collided with eachother in the center of the arena. Itachi looked surprised. Sakura had said it at the same time he had. The girl didn't look like she had it in her to do that. Then, Sakura burst into flames right before his eyes. The fire shot out everywhere, until Itachi's arms caught fire.

He sighed and shook his head. This wasn't going to finish anytime soon.

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There was blood everywhere. A group of rouge ninja decided to attack Sasuke and the ANBU while Sasuke was in a bad mood. It was pretty much suicide on their part, but there were a lot of them. They were defeated eventually, of course, but it had taken a lot out of everyone. Everyone was mostly unharmed, except Kikimandai. She had several deep slashes in critical spots and a couple bad burn marks. She was sitting down with her back against a tree while breathing heavily.

Sasuke walked over to her and bent down to examine her injuries.

"Well, I'm not a medic nin, but I think you need to go back to Konoha for treatment."

Kikimandai didn't answer. She just looked at him and sighed. The ANBU that was leading everyone came over to take a look at her. "She should go back to Konoha. It would take too long to heal her, and we wouldn't be in good condition to fight for Sakura." He said. "Sasuke, take her back to the village, now. We will keep pursuing Sakura."

Sasuke was angry. He flat out didn't want to and wanted to just say no and continue the mission. But he didn't. He bowed his head in defeat and draped Kikimandai's arm over his shoulder and leapt onto a tree branch. He then began the long process of retracing his steps.

After a while, Kikimandai tried speaking to Sasuke. "Sa-Samimasen, Sasuke-sama." She apologized weakly.

"Don't talk. Save your strength, and besides, it's not your fault." He replied.

"No, it is. This is why I couldn't become a shinobi. I'm too weak. All I managed to do was get in the way. I won't meddle in your affairs after this. I'm sorry that I'm stopping you from getting to Itachi and Sakura-sama." She said sadly.

Sasuke suddenly felt her get heavier and realized that she had lost consciousness. He changed position to where he was giving her a piggyback and started speeding towards Konoha.

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After three long days, they finally got back to Konoha. Sasuke went straight to the hospital and made sure that Kikimandai was being treated before he left to go explain what happened to Tsunade. As he was walking towards the Hokage Tower, he was stopped by a blonde ninja yelling, "Sasuke-teme!" When Naruto realized that Sakura wasn't with Sasuke, he looked confused.

"Where's Sakura-chan?" he asked

"No idea." Sasuke replied grumpily.

"You mean you didn't find her?"

"Hn."

"If your mission was a failure, then where are the ANBU?" Naruto asked. The fact that Sakura hadn't been found hadn't registered in his head yet.

"Looking for her." Sasuke said, getting grouchier by the second.

"Why are you here then? You should be looking for her!" Naruto said getting annoyed.

"Someone got hurt, and I had to escort them back, because I am not a member of the ANBU." Sasuke said angrily. He really didn't need someone asking him pointless questions. "I have places to be." With that, he walked off to go file a mission report.

After everything was explained to Tsunade, she was deep in thought. "Sasuke, we have some news on Kikimandai," she started. "I know you probably won't remember this, but when you were leaving three years ago, do you remember a man named Kimimaro?" she asked him carefully.

"Yes, I remember seeing him, and Orochimaru mentioned him a couple times." Sasuke recalled. "What about him?"

"Do you remember his kekke genkai?"

"Yes, he could make bones appear and pop out on any part of his body, and could even pull his bones out to make weapons." Sasuke answered, not sure where this was going.

"Exactly. Well, Kikimandai is from his clan. We just discovered that she too has the kekke genkai along with her…unusual set of abilities." Tsunade explained.

Sasuke just had a surprised look on his face. Tsunade realized he wasn't going to answer so she continued.

"It was also discovered that she inherited it the strongest out of everyone ever recorded in that clan."

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Sakura and Itachi were both panting. They had been fighting for hours and were both pretty beat up. Sakura was in worse shape, but Itachi wasn't doing great either. About two hours ago, he had been forced to activate his Sharingan to dodge her punches. They came fast, and they hurt. A lot. He refused to do anything else with his Sharingan. Those jutsus wore him out, and there was no telling how they would affect her. Mangekyou was completely out of the question. Itachi had been ordered to defeat Sakura, not destroy her.

Sakura didn't have much left in her. She had been releasing genjutsus and using water elements to counter Itachi fire, because his fireballs were stronger than hers. She also used up most of her extra chakra to heal herself. She was determined not to go down without a fight.

Itachi knew that taijutsu was not Sakura best, so he decided to try a simple attack. He charged at her, then vanished. He appeared behind her, then hit her on a pressure point in her neck. She fell to the floor, unconscious. Itachi was slightly annoyed. At least now he knew how to defeat her. He stumbled over to a chair to sit down. That fight had taken most of his chakra. How did this girl know that many jutsus? She used fire, water, earth, lightning, and wind jutsus all in a row. She had to have enormous chakra to do that. He wondered what she could do if she had been aiming to kill. That thought was almost as unpleasant as having to spend a solid month locked up in a room with Tobi. Itachi rested his eyes. They were killing him. He couldn't remember the last time he had to strain his eyes so hard to see his opponent's movements. She moved much too fast and hit much too hard. There was something strange about that girl.

With that last thought, Itachi fell asleep.

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**Yay another chapter done! I somehow managed to write this with no Akatsuki members appearing other than Itachi. Remember, no updates until I know their personalities. I think you can guess what I'm gonna say next...REVIEW PRETTY PLEASE WITH A CHERRY ON TOP!!**


	7. We're Off To See The Paedophile!

**I am sooooooooooo sorry!! I haven't updated in FOREVER!! I had to check tons of websites for more info on the Akatsuki, so they shouldn't be too OOC, but if they are I'm sorry again. Hope you enjoy it!**

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It had been five years since the day Sakura had first fought Itachi. After the other members watched the tape of the fight and saw how exhausted Itachi was afterwards, they'd decided she was definitely strong enough. The fact that she was a medic nin was also useful, though she sure didn't fight like one. She fought much too offensively, but her defensive abilities were top-of-the-notch. They'd only had to do one other test to see whether she could handle joining or not.

**Flashback**

_"Sakura, you passed the first test, un." Deidara had told her._

_She nodded in acknowledgment. "First? How many tests are there?" she asked._

_"Just one other. Just how much are you willing to give up?" asked Deidara. Unbeknownst to her, this was the second test._

_She looked like she was thinking hard, then she decided on what to say. "Anything." She said, quite emotionlessly. "If I had any left, my family, friends, allegiances to Konoha, my body," she paused. "And my soul."_

_"Good, because we have to perform a certain technique on you. Kokoro Koorimasu no jutsu."_ **( Heart Freezing jutsu)**_ Deidara didn't mention that they had never used it on anyone before, and that they weren't sure what effects it would have on her._

_Sakura had an alarmed look on her face so Deidara explained more. "Oh no, not like literally freeze it, more like freezing the emotional heart, un."_

_"Oh."_

_"So you have no objections?"_

_"No."_

_"We'll start right away then."_

_The jutsu had taken five days and five nights to complete, with every member working hard throughout the whole time. All the remorse and guilt Sakura held had vanished. Her personality remained unchanged, however. The only change in her appearance was that her usually glistening emerald eyes drew dull. The only people she saw as friends were her fellow Akatsuki members. She didn't cry anymore. Inner Sakura had vanished without a trace. And the pain in Sakura's heart was gone, not as though the hole had been filled, just numbed._

**End Flashback**

Sakura recalled that incident fondly. She was proud that she was able to throw away that weak, pathetic girl she used to be. She had fought and killed several people and thought nothing of it. She had been very useful in capturing the Jinchuuriki, meaning Naruto was the only one left to capture. She had taken Itachi's attitude towards fighting; she didn't particularly like fighting, but when she fought, she was a monster. Don't get me wrong, she loved a good spar, it was just fighting to kill she avoided. She basically redefined medic nins, who mostly repelled their attackers to heal themselves and teammates, while she attacked quite violently. She had gotten her own Akatsuki cloak, but she wasn't considered an actual member yet, because Orochimaru had taken his ring with him, making him impossible to replace. That was part of the reason why Sakura was where she was.

She was taken captive by Orochimaru. It had happened last week, but they left her chained up in a dungeon. Unfortunately, he knew of her barbaric strength and used unbreakable and chakra-proof chains. She had many deep cuts and slashes on various parts of her body. Normally, she would've healed herself, but she was out of chakra and using any more would've knocked her out for about a month. They had given her a bit of food, just enough to keep her alive, since Orochimaru wasn't really the generous type. She heard the creaking of a door and looked up. Orochimaru and Kabuto walked in with expressions that were difficult to read. Sakura just looked at them for her position on the floor.

"Good to see that you're awake. Talking to you would've been quite difficult if you were unconscious." Orochimaru stated. Sakura sat there in silence so he continued. "I know that you allowed yourself to be captured."

'Shannaro!' Sakura thought. 'Good thing I was prepared for this. It's just he wasn't supposed to know this quickly.'

Sakura still remained silent, much to the annoyance of Kabuto. He leaned down to where he was a couple inches in front of her face. Her expression remained unchanged.

"If you don't want to die, you'll answer Orochimaru-sama." He whispered harshly.

"I also know why you are here, Sakura." Orochimaru said.

'I seriously doubt that.' She thought. There was no way that he could possibly know. Heck, not even the other members of the Akatsuki knew. She hadn't told anyone her true motives.

Sakura still hadn't said a word and had yet to show a single emotion on her face. "You came to try and rescue Sasuke-kun." Orochimaru said. Sakura's face clouded over. At first, when she had first heard any implications of Sasuke, she would start shaking involuntarily. Now, though, she just looked confused.

**Flashback**

_It was Deidara's birthday, so Tobi had gone through the trouble of baking him a cake. It was the biggest cake Sakura had ever seen. It had snow white frosting that looked like it was frosted by an expert. The cake had several layers and they defied gravity. On the top, Tobi had written, 'Tobi says happy birthday!' in blue icing. Strangely enough, the cake was delicious. Sakura had to admit that it rivalled even her cooking. She wouldn't mind telling Tobi when her birthday was to get this kind of treatment._

_Deidara looked over his shoulder at Tobi and looked him straight in the eye…err mask, "After all this, you're still annoying."_

_Upon hearing that sentence, Sakura broke into a fit of trembling. This stunned everyone and they rushed over to her. After five minutes, she'd stopped. She was unharmed, other than a headache. As time went on, this happened less often, but certain words couldn't be said around her, without having weird effects on her._

**End Flashback**

'Sasuke-kun? Who's this? Why would I come to rescue him when I don't know who he is? The name sounds familiar, was he a Jinchuuriki or something?!' she thought confused.

Orochimaru kept talking, "Well, you've failed. Sasuke-kun left years ago."

Sakura finally spoke, "I have not come to rescue Sasuke, seeing as I have no idea who he is." Orochimaru just looked at her. Just five years earlier, she had fought and killed Sasori just to find out some information on where Sasuke _might_ be. The weird thing was, Orochimaru found no lie hidden in her eyes. She _actually_ had no clue who he was talking about. Kabuto noticed this too and wondered how on earth could she not know the person she would've died for in an instant?

After seeing the look on Orochimaru's face, Sakura decided to keep talking. "I've come to aid you in your conquest to take over Konoha, and the other shinobi nations."

Orochimaru noticed her forehead protector had a slash through it, meaning she no longer held any allegiance to Konoha. He also noticed her black cloak with dark red clouds and high collar, so he knew whom she worked with. Luckily for Sakura, he didn't notice that she wasn't wearing a ring.

He just chuckled. "Is that so?" Much to Sakura's annoyance, Orochimaru and Kabuto found this bit of information quite hilarious. If only she wasn't chained up…

She reached into a pocket in her cloak and pulled out a manila envelope. "These are the blueprints to most of the buildings in Konoha." She started. "Also, a list of all the ninja and their ranks."

Orochimaru and Kabuto stopped laughing. Kabuto walked over to take the envelope, but Sakura pulled it back. "Release me." She said plainly. Orochimaru nodded and Kabuto took her shackles off. She flexed her wrists before she handed over the information. Orochimaru opened it and slid out the papers a bit. He looked at them for a second.

"Kabuto, give her a room and by room I mean a nice one. Sakura, be ready to fight in an hour." He ordered. Kabuto just looked annoyed and Sakura looked indignant. 'How on earth am I supposed to fight with no chakra?' she thought frantically. Kabuto started to leave, so Sakura went to follow him. They walked in silence, but she could almost feel how annoyed he was. He led her through several hallways that weren't lit very well. Their footsteps echoed creepily, but what do you expect? This is _the_ snake paedophile's hideout, and that's how you would expect it to be.

He stopped in front of a door and pushed it open. Sakura looked in, curious about where she would be staying, and noticed it was a hospital. She looked over at Kabuto confused. He walked in and went straight to a medicine cabinet. He started to rummage around for something. Sakura just looked at him curiously. He must've found it, since he walked back to her. He thrust two small pills into her hand. She just stared at him.

"Take it. It'll replenish your chakra completely within ten minutes." He explained dully.

She nodded and took one. Satisfied, Kabuto started to walk away. Sakura followed him until he led her to another door. He pulled out a key from his pocket to unlock the door. It revealed a small, dark room with a single wooden chair sitting in the middle. Kabuto walked in and placed a candle on the ground, so it wasn't pitch black.

"You'll wait in here until I come to fetch you." He said emotionlessly.

Sakura nodded and walked in. Kabuto slammed the door quite hard behind her. Sakura started to heal herself while thinking some not so nice things about Kabuto. She finished in about fifteen minutes. Making sure she didn't sense Kabuto, Sakura sat down Indian-style and put her hands into the ram seal.

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The Akatsuki were in the meeting room, discussing what they should do about Sakura's capture when a holographic form of the said girl appeared in front of them. She was very fuzzy and wavered around the middle quite a bit. This had always been hard for her to do, and not having a ring only made it worse.

"Awe, you guys were worried about me, but since I don't have much time, I'll get to the point; I allowed myself to be captured. I'm going to get that ring and have some research I need to do." Sakura explained.

A few seemed surprised by her sudden declaration. Most of them nodded their heads in agreement. Pein didn't.

"I understand what you mean, but you should've asked first, and if I'd said okay, you should've told us before you left." He said calmly.

Though it was hard to tell with all the static, she bowed her head a bit. "Gomen nasai." She apologized quietly. "How long will you allow me to stay?"

Pein looked as though he was thinking hard. "Hmm… do you think you can get what you need done done in six months?"

"Hai, arigato." She replied. "I think someone's coming. Well, ja ne!" then she vanished.

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Sakura sighed. That technique always took a lot of chakra and it had to go a long way. Sakura looked herself over. Boy, had she changed! She had taken more from Tsunade than just her temper; she also had her famous chest, though a tad bit smaller. She wasn't a ruler anymore; she had curves in all the right places. She had gotten a bit taller too. She wasn't going to wear her cloak to fight, so she had just the outfit underneath. It was similar to her sleeveless genin outfit. The dress part was black and the circles were in dark red. The neckline was lower cut than her original, though. Her shorts were about as long as the ones she wore five years ago and were also dark red. Her sandals were the same as her genin ones, except they were black. She tightened her headband, which was her chuunin one; only it had a scratch through the Konoha symbol.

She popped the second pill in her mouth and started to think of strategies for her upcoming fight.

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"But Tsunade-baachan!" Naruto whined. It just wasn't fair, five years of hard training to finally be a jounin and she _still_ refused to let him be Hokage! He'd been a jounin two years now and he was ready to be Hokage, or so he thought.

"No means no!" Tsunade yelled. Naruto had been asking her everyday for the past month to let him be Hokage, and, surprise surprise, the answer hadn't changed. "Now get out before I declare that there will be no ramen in all the Fire Country!"

Naruto had never run faster in his life. An orange blur could be seen from out the window. Tsunade chuckled. 'You'd think after the third time it wouldn't work as well.' She thought. She walked across her office and opened the door to leave. Just as she was about to close the door behind her, she saw the person she was going to go fetch.

"Kikimandai! Just who I was looking for!" she called.

Kikimandai turned around. She had changed quite a lot over the years too. Her dark hair had faded until it was pure white. Two dark red dots had appeared on her forehead within the last year as well. Basically, she was the spitting image of Kimimaru. Tsunade had been helping her train, and over time, she had become less frail. She now had complete control of her kekke genkai and was quite the kunoichi. A year and a half ago, she had been promoted to a jounin. She had replaced Sakura in Team 7 and went on missions often.

The Konoha 12 were very different from when they were genin. For starters, they were all jounin but that was just he beginning of the changes. Naruto and Hinata were married, and so were TenTen and Neji. Ino and Sai were engaged. Shikamaru and Temari weren't engaged yet, only because Shikamaru was too lazy to get down on one knee and propose. Only Kikimandai and Sasuke didn't have a significant other. Kikimandai was too busy training and Sasuke was flat out uninterested. His second goal could wait. The two of them never would consider dating eachother, since they were friends only.

"Hokage-sama!" she bowed her head. Despite becoming more confident and not adding sama to everyone's name, Tsunade was an exception.

"There's another mission for you. Get Team 10 and Sasuke here immediately." She ordered, but kindly.

"Hai!" With that, Kikimandai disappeared in a puff of smoke.

About five minutes later, Team 10 and Team 7 minus Naruto were standing in front of Tsunade, waiting for their mission briefing.

"Now this mission is a long-term mission and you must complete it within a year." Tsunade started.

Everyone nodded, knowing this mission would probably be a difficult one. The only one oblivious to the tense mood was Chouji, who had a packet of chips to keep him occupied.

"This is a very dangerous S-rank mission and it is very likely that you will die." She continued gravely. "As you know, Haruno Sakura disappeared five years ago."

Most of them knew where this was going. Sasuke was curious about this. They had heard no word of Sakura during the whole time she was missing. She was treated almost as though she was dead. Gone, but not forgotten. Kikimandai's mirror only revealed an image of her that was too fuzzy to be of any use. He still had the birthday present he had bought her all those years ago. He kept it in his shorts pocket anytime he left to go anywhere. He wasn't sure why he'd kept it, but he found some comfort in having it with him. He stuck his hands in his pockets and fingered the present gingerly.

"Sakura has been captured by Orochimaru. Whether or not she did that on purpose, I don't know. You are to go find her and bring her back here. Shikamaru, you are the leader for this mission. Dismissed."

They all poofed out of her office and reappeared by the village gate. They were discussing were they should look first. Quickly, it turned into an argument. Finally, deciding it would be troublesome _not_ to say anything and listen to the shouts of his teammates, Shikamaru spoke.

"I agree with Sasuke, we should go to Oto, since Orochimaru has to have been there recently." He said slowly.

Reluctantly, everyone agreed and they headed off to Oto, not knowing what horrors they would have to face. Well, Sasuke had some ideas but that's beside the point.

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A body was thrown roughly to the floor and landed with a dull thud.

"You lose."

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**Yay, another chapter done! Tell me what you think and review please! Next one should be up soon!  
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	8. The Mission

**I am soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo sorry!! I haven't updated in absolutely AGES!! But I sortof have a reason. I had a computer virus, so i couldn't do anything except type and get on FanFic. I typed about half of this, then a week later I got rid of the virus. (When I find out who made it I will tell Naruto that they outlawed ramen, Sakura that they called her an ugly bitch, Sasuke that they also outlawed tomatoes and onigiri, and if they somehow survive that, I tell Tsunade that they were peaking on her in the hotsprings. Try that! SHANNARO!) And I was stalling because I couldn't decide on an ending, but THIS IS NOT THE END!! Please forgive a stupid girl that was too lazy to type!**

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She hadn't wanted to do it. He forced her to. Sakura looked down at Kabuto's body while panting slightly. Yes, it was his own fault. When the fight had begun, Sakura fought as any medic nin should, defensively. Kabuto would charge and attack, and Sakura would block. His attacks were coming at the usual areas for a spar, but then his attack style changed. He was fighting much more viciously. It took Sakura about five minutes of fighting him like that to realize that he wasn't simply aiming to defeat her, he was aiming to kill her.

When she realized that, she instantly attacked him offensively like a monster. He had barely been able to repel her attacks for several minutes. When she used a special jutsu she developed, Kaminari Nagurimasu **(****Lightning Strike)**, he had been unable to block it, and had died instantly.

She glared down at his empty, lifeless eyes. 'You had it coming.' She thought darkly. She turned her head sharply when she heard applause echoing from the other side of the room.

Orochimaru walked out of the shadows while clapping slowly. "Well done Sakura-kun." he cheered monotonously. "I wondered when you would figure out what Kabuto was trying to do." Sakura remained silent. He walked over and also looked down at what used to be Kabuto. "It is for the better that you killed him, since he disobeyed my orders." He continued, not looking at Sakura.

She gave Orochimaru a questioning look. 'Kabuto disobeyed Orochimaru?' she thought confused. 'He respected him too much to do that so deliberately.' Orochimaru faced her now. "I didn't tell him to try and kill you, that would be a complete waste of time. He was supposed to merely defeat you. Seeing as he was unable to do that, he lost his uses since you are also a medic nin."

Sakura nodded. This was not the reaction she was expecting. The fact that she killed Orochimaru's most loyal follower wasn't supposed to make him happy. She had expected him to yell at her or, in a worst-case scenario, kill her. She decided she should probably act submissive so he would trust her. She had a task to do and not much time to do it.

Orochimaru started to walk away at a slow pace. About halfway across the room he stopped and turned toward Sakura. "Are you coming?" he asked annoyed.

"Hai!" she replied and jogged after him. 'Ugh, I hate this.' She thought disgusted with herself. Oh how she hated acting like this, especially when she wanted to murder Orochimaru right then and there. She wasn't sure why she felt so strongly about him, maybe it was because he had invaded Konoha and killed the Sandaime.

He led her through several dark, narrow hallways while explaining which rooms she was allowed to go in, and the ones that she wasn't. She mentally noted where the library and testing room was, so that she could come back later. He showed her the door to his room, which she promised herself she would never to go to.

He opened a door that was in the center of the hallway. All that was in it was a slab for a bed. "This used to be Sasuke-kun's room, but since he left you can use it." He said, rather dully and almost remorseful. 'Sasuke again!' she thought angrily. 'People must know that I have no clue who he is! Shannaro, I'll look him up in the library!'

She nodded. The tour appeared to be over so Sakura asked the question that was the key to this mission. "Orochimaru-sama, may I please go to the library?" she asked sweetly. In her mind, though, she was throwing up at having to call him Orochimaru-sama. He looked at her suspiciously. "Oh, I just wanted to read up on some jutsu and invasion plans to be more help with your plans to take over Konoha." She explained quickly.

"Oh, there's little need for that." He replied with a tiny smirk. "I'll be training you to prepare you, but you need all the help you can get, so go ahead."

She bowed her head slightly and took her leave. Orochimaru's yellow-green, snakelike eyes followed her. He was suspicious and needed to know why she wanted to get to the library so desperately. He still didn't completely trust her, even with her blueprints. He was going to watch her actions closely for a while.

Sakura was fuming. She'd need all the help she could get?! Who did he think he was talking to?! She was a member of the Akatsuki for Kami's sake! Oh, when this mission was over, he would pay dearly for that remark. At least she'd gotten what she wanted, but she saw the look he gave her. She was definitely walking on thin ice right now. While remembering to be careful, she opened the door to the library. It was a simple stone dungeon with all four walls covered with all kinds of books and scrolls just begging to be opened and memorized. Each section was labelled neatly to easily find what you were looking for, rather than waste hours trying to figure out how Orochimaru organized his books. There was a small fireplace in front of an old armchair that looked perfect for reading in. Clearly, Orochimaru spent a fair amount of time in here.

She walked over to the shelf labelled kinjutsu **(forbidden jutsu)** and started browsing for a book that looked like it contained something within her ability level. The shelf was mostly covered in scrolls, seeing as the creators of the jutsu usually documented their findings on separate scrolls, rather than everything all in one book. Having seen a scroll that said Souzou Saisei, she picked it up and walked over to the armchair. She plopped down and found out that the chair was quite comfortable. She smiled and opened the scroll. She smirked when she saw the handwriting. It just so happened that this was the kinjutsu that Tsunade herself had come up with. Sakura had always wanted to learn how to save herself from near death, but Tsunade refused to teach it to her. She had said that it was 'too advanced' for Sakura to learn and that it was forbidden anyway. Sakura hadn't pressed the subject or brought it up again, but she still wanted to know.

Now that she was excited, Sakura settled down in the armchair and started to read.

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"Do you have a permit?" the guard asked the group. They all reached into the pocket on various parts of their clothing to show the guard that they all, indeed, had permits.

"You can go through then." The guard said grumpily. Getting permits to enter Oto was next to impossible. There was so much paperwork to fill out that Tsunade had Jiraiya and Kakashi help her as punishment. It got worse from there. There was fine print and a lot of qualifications as well. Even then, Oto didn't usually like or accept the people with the permits, which would explain why Ino looked rather scared.

"Shikamaru, where should we start?" she asked uncharacteristically timid.

"The village leader would be a good place to start, since we know their real identity." He responded, sounding bored.

"It had to be more difficult than that or Orochimaru would've been killed a long time ago." Chouji reminded them.

"It is." Sasuke said suddenly. "Orochimaru probably still changes bases every week, meaning he stays at one for three days and takes four to travel. He rarely came here, because he needed to keep his location unknown."

"That may be true, but it is still the best place to start." Shikamaru said.

"Ano, where would the leader be? I mean, they don't have a Hokage Tower, so wouldn't the building look normal?" Ino asked.

Chouji walked up to a person eating ramen and asked where the leader of the village stayed. The person pointed toward the center of the city and told him that the building had a large musical note on it. Chouji thanked him and walked back.

"Chouji, how did you know that he would tell you?" asked a clearly impressed Ino.

"No person who eats ramen can be bad." He replied simply. Everyone sweatdropped. 'Naruto has had a large effect on Chouji too.' Sasuke commented in his mind. The group began to walk towards the center of the city. They were getting a fair amount of disapproving looks, and a baby even cried when they walked past. Sasuke, Shikamaru, Kikimandai and Chouji ignored this while Ino took all this rather personally.

Eventually, they finished the walk of shame and were standing in front of the building that the man had described. It was a plain white building, slightly purple tinted. A large serpent formed the musical note on the door. In other words, this building had Orochimaru's name all over it.

Team 10 were about walk in when Sasuke stopped them. "Tomero." He said quietly, so civilians wouldn't hear. "He's not there. This is a trap. Orochimaru wouldn't be so obvious, unless it was a trap. That person eating ramen was probably a spy of his. He must have been expecting us."

Shikamaru was supposed to be the leader, but Sasuke clearly knew more about Orochimaru's mannerisms and habits, so he didn't doubt that he was right. Instead, he asked, "So what do you suggest we do?"

" I know where about seventy of the bases are, so we should check them first."

Shikamaru gestured in front of him with his hands. "Lead the way, Sasuke." Sasuke nodded and sped off towards the village gates. 'All that paperwork was for nothing.' Shikamaru thought. 'I pity the person who tells Tsunade-sama that, seeing as she loves paperwork.' Kikimandai had been silent during all of this. She had trained and was now able to lok in water outside of her mirror to see people. She had seen Sakura around the Noodle Country, but she might've moved location, so she said nothing.

"Sasuke-kun, where is the first base?" Ino asked. She still added the kun to his name out of habit, and to annoy Sakura and Sasuke. Whether she added kun or not, everyone knew that she loved Sai, not Sasuke.

As usual, he was annoyed with the suffix, but he ignored it. "The one that I remember the clearest is the one in the Noodle Country, so we should start there." Sasuke said, while thinking hard. He could picture that base the most clearly for reasons unknown to him. At the time, he thought Orochimaru was being too careful, but now he saw why they had to keep moving. Now he knew how Sakura and Naruto felt while trying to find him. 'Where are you Sakura?'

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Sakura rolled up the scroll and sighed. 'So that's how she does it.' She thought with slight awe. It was a difficult technique, but Sakura was confident in her abilities and would see if she was able to do it in her free time. For now, though, she stood up and put the scroll back on the shelf.

She decided to read Orochimaru's notes on past pupils to see if Sasuke was mentioned in there. A large, heavy book on a stand had the information she was looking for. She had no idea he had so many pupils/experiments. After ten minutes of searching she finally found Sasuke's entry. It was the longest out of all of them. The first two lines told her all she needed to know.

_Uchiha Sasuke_

_One of the two remaining survivors of the Uchiha clan. The other surviving member, Itachi, is his older brother. Possesses Sharingan and level two Cursed Seal. Ambition is to kill Itachi and revive clan._

'Itachi-kun has a brother?! And he didn't tell me!?' she screamed in her head. 'And this Sasuke wants to kill him?! **SHANNARO!!**' Sakura was livid, the wild flame missing from her eyes returning, and felt very much like beating the life out of Itachi for his deception. The rational part of her told her that she needed to calm down. 'Well, when Sasuke comes for Itachi-kun, I will have to help fight him.' She decided.

She walked over to one of the smaller bookcases labelled Doujutsu. This time, she grabbed a book on the Sharingan and the Mangekyou Sharingan, and settled down to read. She needed to know how to defeat the Sharingan, since Deidara refused to tell her his secret. 'I will found out how to defeat you, Sasuke. That's a promise.'

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**As you can see, I'm a perfectionist when it comes to getting my Japanese correct so PLEASE tell me if I messed up. Thanks for reading and more updates coming, since I know which ending I want. Heehee! BTW Sakura still doesn't remember Sasuke, incase you were wondering.**


	9. Results of Training

**Another update! I would have posted it sooner, but I just had to finish an ItaSaku video I was working on (here's the link if anyone wants to watch it _ h t t p : / / w w w . y o u t u b e . c o m/watch?vH5PfBo63kto_ just delete the spaces) Things start to heat up a bit with this one. Enjoy!**

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They had been searching for five and a half months. In that time they had not found Sakura. They had found clues that Sakura had been in the bases recently, but they were always at least one step behind. Kikimandai had been trying to direct them to where she had last seen Sakura, but without telling them she had. She didn't want to get their hopes up. They had stopped to rest in a clearing for the night. It was the summertime and the days were getting longer, meaning they had more time to search for Sakura, but less time to sleep. The stars were twinkling brightly in the dark sky. It was breathtaking, but no one noticed under these circumstances.

"Sasuke-kun, are there any bases near here?" Ino asked carefully. Sasuke had been quite testy the past week from the lack of results. It was almost like playing follow the leader. They always arrived at a base that she had been to days earlier and it _was_ irritating.

"The next one I can remember is the one in the Marsh Country." He said slowly. Shikamaru yawned. This was much too troublesome for him, but he did miss Sakura. When Chouji and Temari were busy, she would always watch the clouds with him. He just hoped they'd find her soon.

The one who was probably effected the worst was Ino. Sakura was her very best friend and the thought of never seeing her again was just too horrible to think about. She was like a sister to her.

Chouji wasn't liking this mission terribly well either. The group didn't eat out much, so that meant no barbecue food. He was happy that Shikamaru was with him, though. At least his best friend wasn't the one missing. He really felt sorry for Ino, and he missed Sakura too. She would often go out to eat with him after he trained. Chouji hoped that she was alright.

Sasuke was getting irritated. Not at the people with him, but himself. If he could've remembered the order the bases were in, he knew that they would've found her already. He blamed himself for everything that had happened. It was his fault she left and now it was his fault that they hadn't found her yet.

Everyone was unpacking their sleeping bags and were getting ready to go to bed. No one was really in the mood to eat, not even Chouji. Nobody really wanted to talk either. They were all thinking about the day ahead of them. Whether or not this was the day that they would find Sakura. It took them hours to fall asleep, and even then it was a light sleep. Sasuke was the last to go.

Once she was sure they were all asleep, Kikimandai got out of her sleeping bag and grabbed her rucksack. She walked about 500 yards from the others before kneeling down. She pulled a small stone bowl and a vial of water from her bag. This wasn't just any water, though. She had taken this water from her pool, since it was the best for gazing into, and had been checking up on Sakura every night for the past five and a half months.

She poured the water into the bowl carefully. She didn't want to waste any, because she didn't bring any extra with her. She then closed her eyes and concentrated her chakra in her eyes, while thinking of Sakura. She opened them, now a dark lavender and back to gaze into the water. It started to ripple gently, but she concentrated on the image in front of her. It showed her the Marsh Country and quickly zoomed in to show Sakura in a base of some sort. She was packing her things into her bag. She suddenly hid her bag, which Kikimandai thought was strange. The door opened and Orochimaru came in.

With this water, Kikimandai could sometimes hear what the people were saying, if she was lucky. Luck was on her side tonight, because she could hear Orochimaru's creepy voice. He was saying that he was going to be gone for a couple days and that Sakura needed to train while he was gone. He left the room and Sakura sighed. Then the image faded.

'She was planning to leave Orochimaru.' She thought. This was quite strange. It also meant that they had less time to find her. If she was with Orochimaru, then they at least knew she was at one of the bases. On her own, there was no telling where she would be.

Kikimandai waited for her eyes to go back to normal before she pulled a funnel out of her bag. She stuck the funnel in the vial and poured the water out of the bowl. Once it was all in there, she put the tiny cork back on the vial. She then put all three items back in her bag. Throwing her bag over her shoulder, she snuck back to where the others were and got in her sleeping bag. Knowing that they would have to travel even faster than they usually did, Kikimandai tried to sleep to keep her strength up. She would tell the others what she had seen tomorrow.

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Sakura sighed in relief. 'That was much too close.' She thought. 'He almost caught me.' Kikimandai was right; Sakura was planning to leave Orochimaru, but there was more to it than that. Now was the time to get that ring. She knew he kept it in his room, but she didn't know anymore than that. She had also completed the other half of her mission as well.

**Flashback**

_'This is it!' she thought excited, 'I have to test this!' Sakura ran out of the library and went to the dungeon. Orochimaru said she could do whatever testing she wanted on any prisoners, so here she was. She began searching for a certain prisoner she knew would be the perfect test subject. He was about 35 years old with dirty blond hair and dark brown eyes that were sunken in and had large bags underneath. He had been there for about three months, Sakura guessed. When she found him, she unlocked the cell and took hold of the chain connected to the shackles on his wrists. She said nothing while leading the prisoner to the testing room. She didn't even know his name. He didn't beg to be freed or struggle, in fact, she hardly needed to pull him at all._

_When they arrived at the testing room, she opened the doors to reveal shelves all over the walls with jars full of who-knows-what on them. There were large tanks with all sorts of things floating in them. Sakura hadn't really asked what was in the tanks. She led the prisoner to a table near the center of the room. She had him stretch out on the table and snapped the cuffs around his wrists and ankles with a dull click. He didn't struggle since he knew why he had been chosen._

_Sakura hooked up an anaesthetic machine and put a mask around the prisoner's mouth and nose and told him to breathe in deeply. She watched as his eyes slowly flutter closed as sleep took him. Satisfied, Sakura walked around to where his head was. Her hands began to glow with green chakra. She then placed her hand gently on his eyes and began repairing his retinas._

_She finished about an hour later and uncuffed the prisoner. He was still unconscious and wouldn't wake up for at least another hour. She carried him gently through to the next room; the recovery room by the medical treatment room. She laid him on the bed and walked a few feet away to grab a clipboard. She sat down next to his bed and scribbled down notes on how the surgery had gone and the like._

_When the prisoner had woken up, Sakura began to ask him questions. "How are your eyes?"_

_"A bit sore, but my eyesight is much better." He answered. "Arigato."_

_Sakura scribbled more down on her clipboard and walked towards the door. She stopped at the door and said without turning around, "I'll be back tomorrow. You should rest." With that, she left the room._

_The next couple weeks had been successful for her and her patient. His vision had gone from nearly blind to perfect, thanks to Sakura. He suffered from ocular degeneration, so she had to make sure that his vision would stay and not deteriorate again. _

_She would give him an eye examination frequently and his vision never fell. After that, she took him back to his cell. "Domo arigato." He said while bowing his head. She just looked at him surprised. "Iie, arigato__**.**__" She said before locking him back up._

_'I've done it.' She thought in slight shock. 'I have found the cure.'_

**End Flashback**

She had also mastered the Souzou Saisei last week, after extensive training and now had a purple diamond on her forehead, which she was still getting used to. She had also found ways to do more difficult healing while using less chakra. Another thing she had studied and wrote down ways to use Doujutsu with less chakra.

After making sure that she didn't sense Orochimaru's chakra anywhere in the base, she left her room quietly. She jogged along the hallways; she wanted to get this over with quick. She stopped in front of his room and took a deep breath. 'I can do this.' She thought reassuringly. 'I have to, or this will have all been a complete waste.' While trying to keep her mind on the task in front of her, she opened the door.

If she thought the other rooms were creepy, this one made them look like a baby's nursery. The lights were even dimmer here and the flames on the candles were flickering eerily. There was a huge stone throne set up on a few steps with the Heaven cursed seal painted on the wall behind it. The bed was just a slab like her own, although it was slightly larger. There was a small table against one of the walls and it held what she was looking for. A dead and decaying arm with the hand still connected was sitting on the table. It had turned a disgusting color of brown. On the middle finger was sora. Why it wasn't on the pinky, nobody except Orochimaru knew.

Sakura quickly walked up to the table and snatched the ring, while trying not to touch the hand. She suspected that it was the hand from his original body. After sticking the ring in her pocket she ran out of the room and almost forgot to shut the door. She didn't stop running until she was safely back in her room. She collapsed on her bed. She was drenched in a cold sweat and was panting heavily. She knew she wouldn't sleep well for a couple days because she had to make sure Orochimaru did not go into his room, or he would know it was her. Despite knowing this, she passed out.

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A few days later, Sakura had just finished packing her things and had thrown her bag over her shoulder when she sensed Orochimaru enter the base. She hurried towards the door to greet him.

"Ohayo, Orochimaru-sama! I was just about to go do some training outside. How did the mission go?"

"It went well." He replied simply. "I'll fetch you in an hour for more training."

"Hai!" she said with a bow of her head.

Then she walked out of the base and into the sunshine. She allowed herself to smile when the sun shone in her face. She then walked to where Orochimaru's room would be above ground and began to form seals.

" Doton: Retsudo Tenshou!" **(Earth Style: Revolving Split Earth Palm) **she shouted and slammed her hands on the ground. The stone of the base began to churn and twist, destroying everything in a large radius. The base was now just huge chunks of stone that looked as though they had been haphazardly thrown down from the sky. Sakura smirked when she saw Orochimaru's arm dangling out from between two boulders.

'I told you that you would pay for that remark.' She thought triumphantly. She took her Akatsuki cloak and hat from out of her bag and put them on. She flipped her hair up on top of her head before putting on the hat, so that no tell-tale pink hair would be seen. Not until then did she put the ring on her left pinky. She didn't feel any different, but nonetheless, she kept it on. Then she started to head back to the Akatsuki base.

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"Kikimandai, do you remember exactly where you saw Sakura?" Chouji asked. They had crossed the border into the Marsh Country earlier that day, and no one sensed Sakura anywhere, and there had been no signs yet either.

"Yes, she was at the base here, though I don't know exactly where the base is." She replied.

"Do you know where it is Sasuke?" Shikamaru asked. He had been making the decisions and setting up formation and such, but Sasuke had been leading them to the bases, since Shikamaru didn't know where they were.

"Yeah, it's farther north than here." He replied. He had a funny feeling about this base, as though something wasn't right. Pushing the feeling aside, he took off again, with the others close behind.

After about twenty minutes of sprinting and jumping between tree branches, Sasuke yelled, "Yamate!"

At first, everyone was confused as to why he had done that, but when they caught up with him, they understood. There was nothing left of the base. Huge slabs of stone had been upturned in no particular pattern. It was a labyrinth of razor sharp rocks. It looked as though a war had happened. The group just started in awe.

Once he got a hold of himself, Shikamaru asked, "I take it this wasn't what the base is supposed to look like?" Sasuke just shook his head. "Well, it's troublesome, but we'd better search for remains and that." He ordered. With a nod, the group spread out and began scanning and searching for a sign of life, or something that used to be alive.

"Sasuke-kun! Ano, I think you should see this." Ino yelled, a bit uncertain. Within seconds, Sasuke was beside her staring at what she had found. There was a ghostly pale arms sticking out from between the rock. The upper arm had a strange tattoo that was almost snake-like. Sasuke stared for a moment before calling Chouji over. Chouji, Shikamaru, and Kikimandai came over and saw the arm.

"Chouji could you..?" Ino asked. Chouji nodded as his fist began to grow in size. With ease, he lifted the boulder off of the body, so that it could be further examined. He set the boulder down nearby before turning back to the others.

With the rock gone, they could all see the crushed remains of Orochimaru. He still wore a surprised expression on his face. "There is no doubt that that is…er...was Orochimaru?" Ino asked. Everyone nodded.

"What on earth happened here?" asked Kikimandai, more to herself than everyone else. No one said anything for about a minute. Chouji tucked the arm next to the rest of the body before picking up the boulder and putting back on the remains. Unless you knew that he was lying here, no one would find the body.

"We should search for Sakura in here too. This might have also happened to her." Said Shikamaru.

"Matte." Kikimandai stopped them from separating and searching. "I can check to see if she's here to save time."

"Go ahead then." Shikamaru said gently. She began to unpack her bowl and vial of water again. She carefully dumped the water into the bowl and shut her eyes. She opened them a couple seconds later and looked in to water. She saw an extremely blurred picture, but she knew it was Sakura, though she couldn't make her out. The image was so blurred; she couldn't see the black cloak with red clouds that Sakura was wearing.

"She isn't here, she is still alive." She told them, while packing up her things. Ino let out a sigh in relief. She thought that maybe Sakura had been killed along with Orochimaru. If Sakura wasn't killed and was travelling alone, that meant that she had done this.

"I can't believe she's gotten this powerful." Sasuke said quietly.

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**Gasp! Sakura is a traitor!! Anyway, the next update will be a MAJOR one so stay tuned!**


	10. What Have I Done?

**Ok, I'm back with my major update. When I say major I mean the size of 4 normal chapters major! And so I don't get killed, HUGE MANGA SPOILERS!! Now with that out of the way, just to let you know that there will be more chapters after this, so stay tuned for more chapters! I'll get to typing them eventually!**

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"Almost there." Sakura breathed. She had traveled all the way from the Marsh Country to the border of the River Country in a week and a half. At the part of the border she was at, though, was Akatsuki territory. It didn't look any different than any other part of the border; it was a thick forest with brush covering the ground, making it perfect for hiding. It was a bright forest; the sky was always visible through the canopy of leaves. She held her left hand out in front of her while she walked. She had been admiring her, yes _her_, ring ever since she had escaped from Orochimaru. "What will Leader think?" she wondered. "What will Itachi-kun and everyone think?" Just to be safe, she took off sora and put it back in her pocket. She wasn't sure whether or not she had yet to earn the ring.

Sakura suddenly snapped her head to her left and threw a shuriken. She had heard a twig snap and you could never be too careful, especially when you were a missing nin. She went over to where the shuriken had landed to find it embedded in a tree, with no sign that it had hit anything alive. She narrowed her eyes. 'I know I heard something.' Despite thinking that, she pulled the shuriken out of the tree and stuck it back in its pouch. She suddenly leapt into a tree and took off towards the base. 'I have to be more careful.' She scolded herself mentally. 'I keep having this eerie feeling that I am constantly being watched.'

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Sasuke, Kikimandai, Shikamaru, Chouji, and Ino were crouched in a bunch of thick bushes, hiding. Thankfully, the River Country was full of places to hide from animals and people. They had all sensed a strong chakra nearby, though they weren't close enough to see who it was. As far as they could tell, the person hadn't noticed them yet. All they knew is that this person was not the type to mess with; they had an enormous amount of chakra. Secretly, they were hoping that it was Sakura, since nearly half of their allotted time to find her was up.

Ino was practically shaking with nerves. 'Sakura, you'd better show yourself!' she thought angrily. 'You are in big trouble when I find you and drag you back. I'll personally make sure that Tsunade-sama is in a bad mood when she assigns you your punishment.'

Though she couldn't be sure, Kikimandai thought that this chakra felt familiar. It felt different from the Sakura she knew, but she hadn't seen Sakura in nearly six years, so her chakra signature was bound to have changed in that time. Ino had also sensed that it was a familiar chakra, but neither said anything for fear of being caught. Luck was not on their side, but they had been right.

"What are you guys doing hiding in the bushes?" a familiar voice asked from behind them. They all turned in surprise. It was none other than the number one knucklehead ninja that never fails to surprise people. The said ninja was smiling in an impish sort of way.

"Naruto!" They all screamed at him. He jumped back in surprise from his not-so-warm welcome. "Nani?" he screamed back. The others just sweatdropped. "What are you doing here?" asked an annoyed Ino. He never ceased to annoy her, even after all this time.

"Yeah, I don't remember Tsunade-sama saying you could come." Chouji added suspiciously.

Naruto put his arms behind his head and grinned wider. "Oh, well, Tsunade-baachan was getting worried, since she hadn't heard any news from you guys, and I was annoying her so much that she sent me after you." He explained.

**Flashback**

_"Can I be Hokage now?" Naruto asked for the billionth time. Even though Team 7 and 10 left, Naruto still hadn't broken his routine of asking Tsunade thirty times a day whether or not he could be Hokage. Tsunade just clenched her fists. "For the last God damned time, no!" she yelled. Still, the answer hadn't changed. Unfortunately, he no longer fell for the ramen trick anymore. Naruto fell silent._

_After about five minutes Naruto asked again. "How about now?" "No!" Suddenly, Tsunade got an idea. Not only would it get rid of Naruto, but it would also help her out. _

_She smiled. "You know, Naruto, I haven't heard any news on how the mission is going to find Sakura." She started. "Aren't you worried at all?" _

_Naruto just stared at her. "Of course! She's my team mate and one of my best friends, dattebayo!" _

"_Well, I need to know how the mission is going, and since you are concerned too, I would like to send you after Team 7 and Team 10." She told him. " Do you accept your mission?"_

**End Flashback**

Sasuke was still suspicious. The reason had made sense, but he knew that the Akatsuki were sometimes in this area, so it might be genjutsu. "Naruto, remember in the Chuunin Exams, in the Forest of Death, when I made a password?" Sasuke asked slowly. He knew exactly what the correct answer was, even though it was several years ago, and he had taken the exam more than once.

Naruto nodded. "Can you tell me what you said when you found me again?"

Naruto knew the answer too. "Sorry, Sasuke, I forgot the password." Ino, Shikamaru, Kikimandai, and Chouji kneeled into attacking stances, and pulled out their kunai. Sasuke, on the other hand, relaxed. "Don't worry, this is the real Naruto." He assured them. They relaxed and lowered their weapons. 'Idiots. I can't believe I used to like him.' Ino thought. 'What kind of a password is that, anyway?'

"Naruto, you'd better of brought food." Chouji threatened viciously. Naruto began to laugh nervously. "Well…Chouji…you see…she didn't give me a lot of warning and…"

Chouji interrupted him. "Don't worry about it. I was only joking." Naruto sighed in relief. 'But I wish I wasn't.' he thought, slightly resentful.

"So, you guys find any signs of Sakura-chan yet?" he asked. Shikamaru glanced at Sasuke before answering. He didn't do anything, except look at his feet. "No, but we have been getting closer to her." Shikamaru replied. Then he filled Naruto in on everything that had happened while they were away. Naruto actually was quiet, nodded occasionally, that is, until he got up to the part with Orochimaru.

"Sakura-chan killed Orochimaru?!" he yelled. Ino hit him on the head. "Baka! Do you want the whole world to hear?" she scolded. "Gomen, gomen." He apologized. "But, are you sure it was her? Kakashi-sensei, or even the old Sandaime couldn't defeat him."

"It had to be her, since she was planning to leave him and we didn't find her body, only his." Chouji explained.

"And Kiki saw Sakura traveling, though she said it was very hard to distinguish what was what." Ino added.

Kikimandai continued. " Yes, although I couldn't see her clothing, I could tell that she was alive and unharmed. The images have also gotten clearer in the past few days, so she is nearby."

Sasuke finally spoke up. "We should get moving, since we don't know when she will be moving again."

Naruto punched the air in delight, "Yoshi, ikimashou!" Shikamaru tapped him on the shoulder. "Because Kikimandai is the only one who knows where Sakura is, meaning you don't, she is going to lead us." Naruto slowly lowered his hand. Kikimandai jumped into a nearby tree.

"This way."

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Tobi was sprinting as fast as he could to where Pein was in the base. Seeing her had got him excited enough, but having a shuriken thrown right at your face at a high speed didn't help. He ran right past Hidan and Zetsu, leaving them surprised. He usually annoyed them the second he saw them. He didn't even greet Deidara as he passed. In fact, he was so worked up that he nearly crashed into Pein himself.

"T… Tobi saw S…Sakura-hi...! Tobi saw Sakura-hime!" he panted. Before Pein could react, the said girl walked up to him. "Leader, I have completed my mission." She told him. She stuck her hand in her pocket and was about to pull out sora, but Pein stopped her. "Matte. Tell everyone to go to the meeting room now, and tell me then." He ordered. "Hai."

It had taken hours to explain what she had done when she was with Orochimaru. No one really said anything, but Pein would sometimes ask for more details. When she got to the part about the ring, she gently took it out of her pocket and placed it on the table. Everyone looked at it in disbelief.

Sakura pretended not to notice and continued. She left out the jutsu she had learned until the end. "Despite what you might think, Orochimaru was a good teacher. He taught like Tsunade did, by not going easy on me. That forced me to learn how to heal faster and using less chakra to do so." She took a sip of water from a glass next to her before she continued. Talking that much really started to hurt her throat.

"So, healing will be much faster from now on. Also, I'm guessing I don't need to explain the diamond on my forehead?" she asked politely and for her throats sake. Kakuzu nodded and gestured for her to continue. 'This is taking much too long.' He thought, now annoyed. He was happily counting his money when he _had_ to come and listen to Sakura rant on and on and on, and Pein kept asking questions, for whatever reason.

"Leader, Itachi-kun, I wrote down some ways that allow Doujutsu users to use up less chakra when using Doujutsu." She placed the scrolls she had written the information on next to the ring. Deidara held in a groan and settled for merely frowning. 'Great,' he thought angrily. 'Now Itachi's Sharingan will be even more powerful. But,' Now he was thinking more on the optimistic side. 'Maybe this means he'll lose his vision even faster since he'll be using _it_ more.'

Sakura interrupted his thoughts. " And Itachi-kun," she paused and looked him straight in the eye, before continuing. He looked back at her with no emotion in his eyes. "I've found a way to repair your vision…permanently." A look of pure happiness crossed Itachi's face for a moment, only a moment, then went back to its usual emotionless expression. Deidara, on the other hand, had a look of horror on his, which he quickly suppressed. Luckily, no one noticed, as they were looking at Sakura, or in Kakuzu's case, he was too busy imagining he was with his money.

Pein slowly picked up sora and walked towards Sakura. She just looked at him in surprise. He held out the ring for her to take. "Take it. You have definitely earned it. That is, as long as I can read your handwriting." He said with a small smile. Sakura took the ring and slid it back on her left pinkie. She felt an overwhelming sense of accomplishment.

'I am now an official member of the Akatsuki!' she thought happily. It had taken many long years, but this was the first time the pain in her heart had truly begun to fade away.

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Naruto and the others had stopped for the night in yet another clearing. They lit no fire, as not to attract attention, and were now gathered around Kikimandai. She was going to check on Sakura again, since she had the feeling that Sakura was in the area, but as if her presence was being hidden somehow. She had already set up the bowl and had begun gathering chakra to her eyes. The others, even Naruto, were watching in silence. They were almost afraid to talk, for fear of distracting her. She looked into the water and gasped. Naruto ran over to see what had surprised her and, being Naruto, knocked over the bowl, spilling all the water.

"Naruto!" Ino shouted at him. "Now how are we supposed to find her?!" She walked over towards him and was about to hit him when Kikimandai put her arm out in front of Ino to stop her. "No, it's alright." She said quietly. Everyone just looked at her as if she were nuts. "Don't look at me like that!" she told them. She paused before continuing quietly, "I know exactly where she is now. Her presence felt as though it was being muffled, but we are so close now that I can see the general location, though not clearly."

"How is she doing?" Shikamaru asked her.

Kikimandai hesitated before she answered. "Well, she seemed to have just finished some very strenuous work, and is very tired. It looked like she was trying to regain her strength."

Sasuke had been quiet during all this. He couldn't sense whether or not Sakura was near them, but he had an unexplainable feeling that something was horribly wrong. "Where is she?" he finally asked.

Kikimandai's nervousness was obvious now. "Ano…I'm not exactly sure how to say this."

"It's okay, just tell us." Chouji urged gently. She sighed. "You do know that the Akatsuki are sometimes in this area?" Everyone nodded, not liking where this was going. "I saw her…in the center of Akatsuki territory. I don't know if she was with them or not, all I know is that she is in a very dangerous place. We need to find her quickly, now more than ever."

Sasuke leapt to his feet, followed by Ino and Naruto. "Then let's go!" Naruto shouted. Shikamaru sighed 'Troublesome.' "We can't go now, it's too dark to see anything. It's troublesome, but we have to wait until the morning." Sasuke, Ino, and Naruto sat back down, looking embarrassed. " We should probably make up a plan, in case _they_ show up." He didn't bother to explain who _they _were, since everyone knew who he meant. Sasuke began to pick at his nails absentmindedly. Truthfully, he was definitely worried again. First, Sakura is with Itachi, then Orochimaru, and now possibly the whole Akatsuki. 'Is she ever with anyone that isn't an S-rank criminal?!' he thought, almost in desperation.

His thoughts were interrupted when Shikamaru began to explain the plan. It was mostly to avoid fighting and run away once they had Sakura. It sounded more like a kidnapping than a rescue mission.

"Did you guys understand all that?" he finally asked them.

'I have no idea what he meant,' Naruto thought. 'So I'll just pretend I do! That always works!' So he nodded his head along with the rest of them. "Good, so we can leave early tomorrow morning then." With that, they all crawled into their sleeping bags and tried to get some sleep. Chouji and Shikamaru fell asleep fairly quickly, while Ino, Kikimandai, Sasuke, and Naruto were still wide awake.

Ino was too excited that she would be seeing Sakura again after five and a half years. She knew that when Sakura came back, everything would go back to normal, since Sasuke had come back too. She didn't fall asleep for another hour.

Kikimandai was much too nervous to sleep. When they got near the spot she had seen, she could only guarantee that Sakura was within a square mile or so. To completely search that area thoroughly, it would take about a week. She was also worried that she might've seen wrong and got everyone excited for nothing, and now, courtesy of Naruto, she had no water to gaze with, since normal water was not as powerful. She rolled over on her side and tried to think relaxing thoughts to help her sleep. She drifted off after about twenty minutes of that.

Sasuke refused to accept that Sakura would be found tomorrow. He wouldn't dare himself to hope, to only have those hopes crushed. He promised himself that since this was all his fault, he would be the one to make this right again. His hand had found itself in his shorts pocket again, and he began to stroke the small box inside. 'I might actually get to give this to you tomorrow.' He thought jokingly. 'Hope you don't mind that it's a bit late.' More seriously, he was worried about the Akatsuki being near her. Though he could only judge them based off of one member and one ex-member, he knew that they would not appreciate people being in their territory. If they had taken her captive and forced her to be their medic nin…no, he didn't want to even think about what horrible things they might do to her. Naruto was thinking along the same lines as Sasuke, though he wasn't blaming himself.

About an hour and a half later, they fell into a light sleep.

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Sakura was sitting in the medical room with a clipboard in her hand and was, once again, scribbling down notes on how the surgery went. This time, though, she wasn't sitting beside the bed of some grimy prisoner; she was sitting beside the bed of Itachi. It hadn't taken much to convince him, in fact, he practically asked her to fix his eyes. She didn't have to clamp him to the operating table, since she was positive he wouldn't try to leave. The surgery had taken much longer than the last time, and for good reason. For starters, if it went wrong on a prisoner, it didn't really matter. With Itachi, she would never forgive herself and she would have the whole Akatsuki (except for Deidara, he probably wouldn't mind that much.) after her. It also wasn't just normal eyesight she was dealing with, since it wasn't his normal vision that was causing the problem. She had to try and repair the Sharingan, and it wasn't even the normal one; she had to fix the Mangekyou Sharingan. Basically, not only did his normal vision have to be repaired, his Sharingan had to be too, and it still had to work afterwards. So, she obviously took her time and proceeded carefully.

She was so busy writing that she didn't notice Itachi's head facing her. She had put bandages over his eyes, just to be one the safe side, and, besides, he should be able to take them off right after he woke up.

Itachi noticed that she wasn't paying any attention to him so he blindly reached out and grabbed her wrist. He felt her jump in surprise. "Oh, Itachi-kun, you scared me." She said as she put a hand up to her chest. Since he had been under anesthesia for several hours, she hadn't expected him to wake up for at least another two hours. "How are your eyes feeling?"

"I don't feel anything."

"Nani?!" she said loudly in alarm. 'Oh, no! I've damaged the nerves in his eyes!' she thought with a look of horror coming to her face.

"No, no I meant that I don't feel any pain." He said quickly. "I didn't mean to scare you."

"It's alright, I think that didn't get a heart attack." She replied teasingly. "I think if your feeling well enough to try and get me to have a heart attack, your eyes should have healed enough for a test."

Sakura then reached over and began to gently remove the bandages around Itachi's eyes. When she had removed them, Itachi slowly opened his eyes, then looked at Sakura. She immediately went into professional mode, and pointed her index finger towards to ceiling. "Follow my finger and don't move your head." She commanded. She slowly moved her finger back and forth across and past his face. To her delight, his eyes followed it perfectly. She held up a small medical flashlight and shined it in his right eye, which he narrowed at the sudden light change.

"No, Itachi-kun, don't squint at me. Keep your eyes opened normally."

"That's not easy to do when someone is shining a bright light in your eyes!" he replied, sounding annoyed.

"Can you try? Please?" she asked. "It's for your own good, you know." 'Note to self: Itachi-kun is grouchy when he first wakes up.' She thought with slight amusement. Despite his mood, he did as she asked. Deciding that his eye was healthy and was healing perfectly, she checked the left eye.

"Well, your eyes seem to be working fine and are healing the way they are supposed to, Itachi-kun." She told him cheerfully.

"Can I leave now, then?" he asked, sounding as if his mood had worsened.

"Don't worry, there's only one more test for today." She assured him. "It is a very simple one too." Using both of her hands, she held up eight fingers. "How many fingers do you see?"

"Juu." He answered simply.

"Juu?!" she yelled confused. 'Why is he seeing ten fingers!?'

Itachi kept talking before she could yell at him anymore. "You're only holding up eight, though." He had a victorious smirk on his face now.

"Damn you, Uchiha! If you mess around, I'll think that I destroyed your eyes!" she shouted, a vein popping from the side of her head. "And if I think that, I'll tell Leader and he will find no use for you if you are blind, meaning that Kisame will need a new partner." She held up eight fingers again. "How many?"

Itachi sighed before answering. "Hachi."

"That's what I thought. Now how many?" She held up three this time.

"San."

"Ok, now?" Now she had six fingers held up.

"Roku." He answered sounding rather bored. "Are we done yet?"

Sakura smiled. "Yes, Itachi-kun, we are done for today. You can go now." Itachi sat up and swung his feet over to the side of the bed. Then he stood up and made for the door. Sakura stuck her arm out in front of him to prevent him from leaving. He just stared at her.

"But, I expect you to be back here at eleven tomorrow morning." She said in a serious tone.

"Fine." After hearing that, Sakura lowered her arm and let Itachi pass. He went out the door without a backwards glance. "Oh, dear, I seem to have ruffled Itachi-kun's feathers." She said with a giggle. "I really feel bad for Tobi if he catches Itachi-kun when he's in this mood now!" Naturally, after she said that, she heard the sound of glass smashing and running footsteps after that, two sets of running footsteps.

"Tobi just wanted to know if you were having a good day!" she heard Tobi call back to his pursuer in a nervous tone. She could tell by the way his voice was carrying that he was running from, best guess, Itachi.

"Stupid irony." She muttered.

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True to his word, Itachi showed up at the medical room on time the next day. He cooperated with her and answered her questions truthfully and was more patient with her than he was the first day. He didn't try to kill Tobi immediately afterwards, either. He was the same the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that. During that time, the other members had left for various reasons. Kisame left with Zetzu, since he didn't want to wait on Itachi. Eventually, Sakura performed all the tests in her ability to make sure that his vision had recovered from its deteriorated state and that it would not deteriorate again. For the final test, she needed Itachi's help.

"Itachi-kun, that's you done for today, but," she paused uncertainly. She wasn't sure how he would take this news. "For the final, and most important test, I need your help."

"You want me to use it on you." He said. He had suspected for the last couple days now that she would ask him to do that, and, after all, it did make sense. It was the only way to know if his eyes were truly healed.

"Yes, it is the only way." She answered, sounding a little remorseful. "I have thought it all through, though." She continued more cheerfully. " If you use the Tsukuyomi on me, and don't put me through any horrific torture, we can see how your eyes are, and I should be unharmed…for the most part."

Itachi looked worried now. "Are you sure you want to go through that? You do remember what happened to Kakashi-san?"

Sakura nodded. "I still remember. I trust you not to put me through something as horrible as that, and I am a medic nin after all, so I could just heal myself in that Tsukuyomi world of yours.

Itachi just shook his head. "Not if I don't allow you to. In that place, I control everything. I could put you through a weeks worth of pain while only a second passes in the real world."

"I know that." She replied sharply.

"Then why do you offer yourself up as a test subject?" he asked her.

"Genjutsu doesn't work on bunshin of any type. It is the only way. And," she looked him straight in the eye before smiling warmly at him. "I trust you with my life."

Itachi studied her expression. Her eyes were shining with determination; her brow was furrowed slightly, and she had a small smile on her face. She looked completely fearless of what was to come and of what could become of her. After checking, and double-checking, that he had read her expression correctly, Itachi responded.

"Alright, I'll do it."

"You will?" she sounded pleasantly surprised. Her eyes now widened with hope.

"Yeah, but I still don't like the idea." He replied grumpily and defeated. He would much rather test this on Tobi, but sadly, he and Deidara left earlier that morning. He was pretty sure no one would've minded if he had 'forgotten' that he wasn't supposed to put Tobi through real torture. That would've saved everyone a lot of hassle, and the general mood of everyone would have probably improved.

"Great! Let's go now!" she said enthusiastically. She grabbed his hand and started to drag him towards the door. He couldn't help but notice how her hand was delicate, soft, and small, when the rest of her body was tough and strong. It was like her personality; very strong, and sometimes violent, but with a soft, sensitive side that no one knew about. He tried to plant his feet into the floor, but there was no stopping her monstrous strength.

"Now?"

"Yeah! That is, unless you aren't feeling up to it." She added sweetly, while giving him a challenging look. She knew he would never admit weakness flat out like that.

"Let's go." He snapped, and he began to lead her by the hand towards the arena. In her mind, she let out a giggle. His grip on her hand was very strong and, maybe she was imagining it, protective. She hoped she wasn't blushing in front of him, she could never live that down, and she needed to focus if she was going to get through this unharmed, or even alive. The fact that her hand was tingling really wasn't helping her concentration.

They arrived at the arena much too fast for her liking. She did trust Itachi, but she wasn't sure about how just him using the Mangekyou Sharingan would affect her mentally. Ignoring her worries, she walked to the opposite end of the arena that Itachi was on. She didn't even bother to get into a fighting stance, as it would be pointless.

He turned so he was facing her. He didn't tell her to move closer, though it would be harder for him to use his Tsukuyomi with her farther away. Despite her assurance, he was worried that she would get hurt, and the closer she was, the more powerful the Tsukuyomi would be. He activated his three tomoe Sharingan and looked Sakura in the eye.

"Ok, Sakura, look at my left eye. Only my left eye." He instructed her carefully. She did as she was asked, then she suddenly jumped in front of him with her arms stretched out in a protective manner with her back facing him.

"There are some shinobi coming. About six of them, all from Konoha. I recognize five of the chakra signatures. Uzumaki Naruto, Yamanaka Ino, Nara Shikamaru, Akimichi Chouji, and Kaguya Kikimandai." She explained quickly.

"I sense them too. I recognize Naruto-kun's." he replied, not mentioning that Sasuke was also with them, because that would confuse her. He had expected people to come looking for her, but much earlier, not five years after she left. He figured Sasuke had only come to kill him and had no idea that Sakura was even there. Itachi wasn't really worried. He knew that Sasuke had been training under Orochimaru for several years, but since Orochimaru was weaker than himself, he felt that he had nothing to fear.

"A signature that I don't recognize, and Kikimandai are the two closest to us. The other are farther off and Naruto is even farther away than the others." She said rapidly, and with good reason.

Suddenly, the far wall of the arena began to shake and muffled pounding could be heard. Rocks came flying off the wall towards Itachi and Sakura. Seeing as Sakura was in front of Itachi, she punched the rocks that came at them into dust. As quickly as she could, Sakura briefly described Kikimandai's abilities and the fact that she had been too frail to become a shinobi.

She did that just in time too, as the second she stopped talking, the wall was smashed open, with an explosion of rocks following. Clouds of dust and dirt rose from where the hole was, making it hard to see anything. Two figures stepped from out of the cloud with kunai ready in their hands. Sakura recognized one of them as being Kikimandai, though the identity of the other one was a complete mystery to her. He was very attractive with black hair that was curiously spiked up in the back and had large onyx eyes. His skin was like porcelain, the color very close to her own. He was wearing a baggy black shirt with a loose, high collar. He wore baggy shorts of the same color, and his sandals were also black. He looked quite a bit like Itachi, she decided. He seemed to be studying her, while she studied him, which proved to Sakura that they had never met.

Kikimandai was wearing the typical Konoha jounin outfit and vest. She seemed to have finished scrutinizing Sakura and now looked like she was trying to piece the whole situation together.

Sakura wasn't wearing her Akatsuki cloak, she didn't have sora on, and she had also forgotten to paint her nails that morning, so she didn't even look like a member of the group. She wore a red sleeveless shirt with a small collar and a zipper that was straight for about two-thirds of the shirt, then jerked rapidly down to the left. She had a small, red loincloth type thing over black tights that went to mid-thigh. She also wore black sandals.

It was a very deafening silence until Sasuke spoke up. "Uchiha, Itachi." He said, hatred evident in his voice.

Sakura turned to Itachi. "It seems you have yourself an mortal enemy." She whispered, so only he could hear. "Who is he anyway?"

Itachi answered her question loud enough for everyone to hear. "Sasuke."

'Sasuke?!' she screamed in her head. 'This is the one that wants to kill Itachi-kun? This is his brother?' She had a look of determination on her face again. 'Then this is the man I must defeat.'

Kikimandai instead focused her attention on Sakura. She didn't appear to be part of the Akatsuki, since she lacked the telltale cloak. She guessed that she was taken prisoner, or she was under some sort of genjutsu. "Sakura-senpai."

"Kikimandai." She answered. Itachi wasn't familiar with this girl, but she had stayed inside for most of her childhood, so most older people didn't. He had heard of the Kaguya clan and how they had been wiped out do to their own stupidity, though. It was said that their Kekke Genkai, Shikotsu Myaku **(Corpse Bone Pathways),** was frightening to watch.

Sasuke didn't look as though he was going to say anything to Sakura anytime soon, so Kikimandai cut to the chase. "Sakura-senpai, we are taking you back to Konoha." She said commandingly. Sakura just laughed in response. This got Sasuke's attention and he narrowed his eyes. "What is so funny, Sakura?"

Sakura wiped a tear of laughter from her eyes before replying. "Just that you thought that I could be forced to do what you say." While Sasuke glared, Kikimandai sighed. "So you're not going to come without a fight, are you?" This caused Sakura to start tutting. "Now why wouldn't I? Looks like you're not going to leave without one." She commented. Now Sasuke spoke up. "We aren't going to leave without you."

Sakura was now genuinely confused. 'Why would someone I never met, and the person I have to defeat want me to leave with him?' Making sure her face showed none of her inner confusion, she asked, "Now, now, now, why would you not leave without me when we have never met?" Kikimandai and Sasuke just stared in disbelief. She didn't remember him?! After all they had been through? All the joy, happiness, pain, and heartbreak? "You don't…remember me?" he asked slowly, sounding a bit hurt. She just shook her head in response. "Itachi!" he shouted, "What have you done to Sakura?!" He shot him a look full of venom.

"Nothing that didn't help her in the end." He answered calmly. Despite his calm demeanor, Itachi was starting to get nervous. If Sasuke said something that would spark her memory…it would be over for him. The fact that seeing him alone hadn't sparked her memory was a miracle in itself, and extremely fortunate for him. How long it would last, he couldn't say.

Sakura just blinked in a confused sort of way. Itachi's answer hadn't made sense. He could've just said training, since that was all he had done to her in the way of gaining power.

Kikimandai realized almost immediately what Itachi meant and gasped. He smirked in response. "I…Itachi-san, that's just going too far!" she exclaimed. "I was merely helping a friend with a pain in her life." He shrugged.

Sakura was thinking hard. None of this made any sense! She couldn't piece together what they were talking about and it was making her frustrated. "Shut up! Just all of you shut up!" she yelled. Everyone was so surprised at her outburst that they did as she had asked. "Now, I have no idea what is going on, but if you don't leave, then I will force you to." She growled.

Sasuke just glared. Something wasn't right with her, he could feel it. The fact that her memory had been erased was bad enough, but she now refused to leave with them and wanted to fight was too much. Seeing someone he cared about that much in a state like that nearly broke his heart. Having to fight someone you love is just too cruel, but he had no choice. If she had been with Itachi all these years, then there was no way Kikimandai could handle her. Sasuke still glared to keep his thoughts hidden. When in doubt, just glare…or say "Hn." Was his philosophy.

Sasuke took a step forward to fight, but Kikimandai stuck her arm out in front of him. "No, I will fight her." She said with confidence. He shook his head. "You can't, I have to fight her." He made to push her arm away, but she grabbed his wrist. "If you fight her now, you will be in no condition to fight Itachi." She reminded him. "And that is one of your ambitions, right?" he relaxed and stepped back while she stepped forward.

"Itachi-kun, I don't know what they think you've done to me, but you _will_ tell me everything when this is over." She said in a low voice. She started to walk forward, but he grabbed her wrist. " You don't have to, I can handle this." She jerked free of his grip and kept walking forward. When she was opposite of Kikimandai she looked over her shoulder at him. "Besides, they are here for me, not you. It is my fault they are here in the first place, so I should be the one to fix it." She said with a small smile. He nodded and also stepped back to give Sakura enough room to fight. He looked over at Sasuke and mouthed "Matte."

Sasuke understood and nodded. He could not fight Itachi while Kikimandai and Sakura were fighting. The arena wasn't large enough for that, and he would inevitably hit an ally. He had waited over ten years for this moment, so he could wait for another couple minutes.

Sakura and Kikimandai both kneeled into fight positions. They looked each other in the eye and gave a sharp nod before flying at each other. Sakura gathered chakra to her fist and took a powerful swing at Kikimandai, who dodged gracefully. This infuriated the already angry Sakura who then leapt into the air and, this time, gathered chakra to her foot and aimed to crush her from above. This time, Sakura's foot hit her mark, only not the way she had expected. Some spiky bones had grown out of Kikimandai's shoulder and had taken hold of Sakura's foot. Sakura struggled, but to no avail; the bones had a strong hold on her. 'Duh,' she thought while mentally slapping herself on the forehead. ' She specializes in taijutsu, so I'll have to do something else. I've got it!'

Sakura slammed her hands into the tiger seal and began to mold her chakra. From her foot all the way to her head, she began to disappear into thin air. Itachi smirked from the edge of the arena. 'Looks like she has trained with Kurenai-san.'

A tree grew thousands of times faster than normal right behind Kikimandai. Its branches grew around her and trapped her to the tree. Sakura then began to grow out of the tree with a kunai in hand, ready to kill. "This is the end." She said plainly. She made to stab Kikimandai, but the bones stopped her again. "You cannot beat me, Sakura-senpai," she told her. "With my Kekke Genkai, you will never be able to hit me."

Sakura looked deep in thought. "That maybe be true, but every Kekke Genkai has a weakness." She said more to herself than Kikimandai. Sakura then exploded into a shower of sakura petals. 'It seems I will have to resort to _that_.'

"Baku Siushoha!" **(Bursting Water Collision Waves) **she shouted. She opened her mouth and looked down. She looked as though she was going to throw up, but vomit didn't come out her mouth. Gallon after gallon of water came pouring out of her mouth onto the floor. After a couple seconds, the arena was completely flooded with water.

"Doton: Doryuu Jouheki." **(Earth Element: Earth Style Rampart) ** she said immediately after the water had flooded the floor. The ground below Itachi and Sasuke began to shake and move upwards. This lasted until they were about ten feet above the battle and standing on small, but sturdy, pillars of earth. "So she plans to go all out." Itachi commented. "So she put us out of the way."

Sasuke was in shock. He hadn't even seen Sakura use hand seals for that last move, it was much too fast. The fact that she could use two elements was news to him also. He heard Itachi comment on it and asked him. "All out? What is she going to do?"

Itachi smirked yet again. "Hope you weren't too attached to that girl." Then Itachi directed his attention back to the battle. Sasuke kept looking at him, but when he realized that he wasn't going to say anymore, he too looked back. Sakura now had raised herself about a foot out of the water. Before Kikimandai could react to the arena changing, Sakura began to form seals again.

"Raiton: Raikyuu!" **(Lightning Element: Lightning Ball) **she shouted. A ball of lightning formed into her left hand. It was crackling and spitting, it looked like it would cause a lot of damage. It made Sasuke think of a non-Sharingan Chidori. Sakura then plunged her hand into the water. Electrical current spread out everywhere, because water conducts electricity. The lightning spread out until it reached Kikimandai. When she had seen Sakura use a lightning element, she started to grow her bones out of her body, until they formed into a sphere with her inside. When the lightning came it sparkled and crackled as it hit bone, and under other circumstances, would have been thought to be a beautiful lightshow. The lightning kept hitting the bone, but it refused to crack. Sakura lifted her hand out of the water, and the lightning stopped. Kikimandai had her bones shrink until they all returned to her body. "Well, Kikimandai, I underestimated you." Sakura said.

Kikimandai wasn't fazed. " Have you forgotten that I am from the Water Country, Sakura-senpai?"

"No, of course not." Sakura hadn't forgotten, but she had overlooked it. She knew about Kikimandai's Kekke Genkai, but she didn't know whether she could use Suiton ninjutsu or not. Either way, this made it harder for Sakura, since her chakra was water and lightning based. She could use all five elements, but wind was extremely difficult for her to use, seeing as that was her weakest element. Clearly, this strategy wasn't going to work. She needed to disable that Shikotsu Myaku. Suddenly, and idea hit her, she had to get close to Kikimandai for it to work, though. That would be the tough part.

Sakura formed hand seals yet again. "Suiton: Mizuame Nabara!" **(Water Element: Starch Syrup Capture Field) **she yelled. Then she opened her mouth and began to spit a sticky liquid onto the floor. The liquid mixed with the water, making it spread even faster, and in five seconds, the floor was covered with the strange liquid.

Sakura looked over at Kikimandai, and to her delight, her feet were stuck in the liquid. She was struggling to free herself, but nothing was happening. Sakura gathered chakra to her feet and jumped off the rock and onto the liquid. She was able to walk over it normally. She walked over to Kikimandai in a victorious fashion. She gathered chakra into her hand and quickly changed it into electricity. Then she pushed her hand roughly into Kikimandai's shoulder and let the electricity leave her hand.

Kikimandai fell backwards from the force of the push, which resulted in all of her being stuck in the liquid. 'Until this sticky stuff goes away, I can't attack. At least I can defend myself.' She thought.

As Sakura was walking back towards the bit of earth she raised, Kikimandai tried to turn her head to follow, but could not. She tried again, but all that happened was her ankle turned. "Rashinshou." **(Chaotic Mental Collision) ** she said in defeat. Once arriving at the rock and jumping back onto it, Sakura answered, "Yes, that's right. You aren't able to move anyway, but this will stop that pesky Kekke Genkai of yours." Kikimandai waited for the deathblow. But before it came, she called up to Sasuke.

"Sasuke! Gomen, but you will have to take on Itachi alone." He stared at her. 'How could she be giving up so easily?' he thought. He hadn't heard their conversation, so he didn't know that she was unable to defend herself from the next attack. "What is she talking about?" he said to himself.

Itachi heard him and replied, "Sakura stopped her from moving with a water ninjutsu so she could disable that girl's Kekke Genkai with Rashinshou." He explained. Sasuke stared at him in shock before answering Kikimandai. "It's okay, you did your best, so you have nothing to be sorry for." She smiled at him sadly, one of the few things she could do in her current condition.

Itachi watched the whole fight in fascination. To use water to defeat a water ninja seemed quite stupid at first, but it had worked in the end. He was also curious as to why Sakura, knowing this, had used water instead of the other elements. That thought made it click. Her chakra was water based, that would explain it. It didn't explain why she was able to use all five elements, though. He was going to ask her that when he had a chance. It also appeared that she still didn't remember Sasuke, so at least Sakura was on his side.

"Raiton: Raikyuu!" she shouted as she slammed her hand into the water again. This time, when the electrical current reached Kikimandai, it hit. The lightning took over her body and made her hair all stand on end. She screamed in pain for a second, then fell face forward into the water, and was lost from sight. Sakura sighed. Now she had to drain the water, and she just hated cleaning up. "Doton:Iwa Yado Kuzushi." **(Earth Element: Stone Lodging Destruction) **she said dully. The rocks below the arena began to shift left and right leaving a hole near the center. The water rushed to the hole and left Kikimandai behind. After the water was gone, Sakura moved the rocks back over the hole and made it look as though nothing had happened. She then lowered the small pillar she was on, along with the ones that Itachi and Sasuke were standing on.

When everyone was on solid ground, Sasuke went straight to Kikimandai. "There's no point in that," Sakura said. "She's dead." Sasuke put his fingers to her neck to check for a pulse and she was, indeed, dead. "Itachi," Sasuke growled. "I'll ask you again, what have you done to Sakura?"

Itachi looked rather amused. "Why don't you ask her yourself?" he replied. "She's the one who agreed to it, and it wasn't my idea, anyway." Sasuke whipped his head to look at Sakura. "Sakura, did you really agree?" he asked gently. She nodded. How could she forget the day when the pain had been numbed? The day when she felt she was really one of them? "What have you done to yourself!?" he shouted, losing control. 'She isn't even Sakura anymore!' he thought in horror. 'I will save you…even if it is from yourself.'

Sakura began to lose it too. "Why the hell do you care so much? I don't even know you! All I know is that you want to kill Itachi-kun!" she screamed at him.

"Itachi...kun?" His eyes widened in horror. 'Itachi-_kun_?!'

"Oh, don't pretend you don't know who I'm talking about! I'm not stupid!"

Sasuke calmed himself down and tried a new tactic. If she didn't remember him, yet remembered Kikimandai, she had to remember something that would help him. "Sakura, you weren't always like this." He said gently. "You would never kill a person."

"You're right." She admitted. "I wasn't. I was weak, annoying, and miserable, so I went through a change. One that I don't want to undo."

Sasuke sighed. This might be harder than he thought, since she didn't really want to cooperate. "Do you remember being a genin? And the first time you took the Chuunin Exams?"

That stopped Sakura. 'Come to think of it, I don't remember being a genin hardly at all.' She remembered Naruto and Kakashi-sensei, but she just couldn't recall who the other member of Team 7 was. She knew that Orochimaru had showed up during the Chuunin Exams and he must've attacked the other teammate, since Naruto was missing for a while and he had ignored her. She remembered cutting off her hair to save that person from the Sound nin. In the third test, she remembered chasing after that person and standing up to an insane Gaara and risking her life for her team mate, but she had no idea who it was.

Itachi saw the look on Sakura's face and knew that he was in trouble. Sasuke was trying to force her to remember, and, eventually, it would most likely work. "Honestly, I can't remember some things." She said quietly. Then she got enraged. "You're just trying to mess with my head! Now leave!"

"I already told you; I'm not leaving without you."

"Then fight me." She challenged.

"No." he said plainly. Then he looked at Itachi. "Ever since that day, I've done what you said," he activated his Sharingan now. "And survived! The moment has finally come," he powered up his Chidori so much that the skin on his whole hand peeled right off. "For me to kill you!" He charged at Itachi with his Chidori ready to kill. At the last second, Sakura jumped in front of Itachi, and deflected Sasuke's attack and grabbed his wrist. He looked up at her angrily. "You will not harm Itachi-kun." She said darkly. "You are my opponent."

Sasuke glared at her. "Even if you don't remember me, you should know what he," he pointed at Itachi with his free hand. "Has done!"

"Yes, I know that he wiped out his entire clan except for you." She said. "Do you know why you weren't killed?" Itachi shot her a warning look, but she ignored it and gave him a 'Don't-worry-I've-got-this-under-control-and-I-will-make-him-forget-it-anyway' look.

This angered Sasuke further. "Because I wasn't worth killing." His eyes were slits and if looks could kill, the whole planet would be dead.

"Wrong."

"Wrong?"

"Yes w-r-o-n-g, wrong!" she spelled for him.

"How would you know?" he shouted. "He told me that when he killed everyone!"

"I know because he told me the truth." She said quietly.

Sasuke sighed. 'Fine, I'll play your little game.' "Alright, is it because he wanted me to hate him so much that I would want to kill him, which meant I would want extra power, so I needed to kill Naruto, so I would get the Mangekyou Sharingan, then when I came to kill him he would take my eyes to heal his?"

Sakura shook her head. "Even though that actually makes a lot of sense, no."

"Why then, since you know everything about my past, yet don't remember me." He said annoyed. 'Maybe she isn't completely different.' He thought. 'After all this time, she's still annoying.'

"Because he couldn't bring himself to do it." She whispered.

"Nani?" Sasuke shouted. " Like hell he couldn't! If he could kill everyone for no reason, he should be able to kill me without a second thought!"

"Itachi-kun doesn't do anything for no reason." Sakura said. "And, for starters, he wasn't the only one who wiped out your clan."

"Of course he is the only one! I'm the only other one alive, and I sure didn't help!" he screamed at her. His thoughts were much more tender. 'I got home late because I was with you, playing.'

"Wrong again." Sakura sighed. For being Itachi's brother, he sure was stupid. "Uchiha Madara is not dead. He is still alive."

Sasuke laughed manically. "Uchiha Madara still alive? That's impossible! He founded Konoha and he is older than the Shodai Hokage, who is dead. You've completely lost your mind!"

"No, I haven't and the Hokage are no saints. The current one is a gambler and steals money to gamble and doesn't pay back her loans!"

Sasuke stopped laughing and settled for a death glare. "She taught you everything you know! None of the other Hokage gambled!"

"She didn't teach me everything! I learned a few tricks on my own, thank you!" she yelled indignantly. "If you should blame anyone for your clan's annihilation, it should be the Sandaime. He ordered it."

After she said that, Itachi had heard enough. "Sakura, stop! He can't know anymore! I wasn't even supposed to tell you!" he yelled at her.

She turned to face him. "You think I _want_ to tell a complete stranger classified information?" she yelled back. "This is to protect you! If he knew the truth, he would stop hunting you and leave. No one would believe him anyway."

"That's not the point, Sakura! Don't you see? Once they know he knows, you know what they'll do." He snapped at her.

"Well, the same thing would've happened if he didn't know!" she snapped right back. "He'd come looking for you and then, _you'd _have to do it!"

Itachi sighed. "I was twelve, I didn't think it all the way through. To this day, I doubt whether or not I could bring myself to do it."

Sasuke, temporarily forgotten, Sakura walked over to Itachi to place a hand on his shoulder. "Either way, it would have to be done." She said gently. "If you can't do it, then..." she paused. "Will you let me?" Itachi stared at her. "You can kill me afterwards if you like, but it must be done, unless you'd rather take his place?

This got Itachi's attention. He knew he was going to Hell for his crimes, and would much rather put it off as long as possible. And if Sakura did it, he knew it would be painless. He had no idea what another person would do. He would just have to tell himself that he had done the right thing by sending him to a better place.

She continued. "This way, you can loathe me and still be able to live with yourself. I would be the tainted one."

"O…okay." He said shakily. Sakura nodded and left his side.

Sasuke hadn't heard what they had said, but he could tell by Sakura's actions that she had been comforting Itachi. Couldn't she see that this all was a lie? "Sakura, everything he has told you is a lie!" He yelled at her. "Now let me avenge my clan!"

"You will have to go through me first!" she screamed.

Sasuke wasn't going to discuss it anymore and made the decision that if he had to break every bone in Sakura's body to make her return, he would. "Katon: Housenka no Jutsu!" he shouted as he began to release flames from his mouth, aiming for Sakura. "Suiton:Suijinheki!** (Water Element: Water Encampment Wall) **she yelled in response. Water flowed out of Sakura's mouth to form a wall between her and the fire. The blaze was put out immediately, and the shuriken hidden inside the flames fell to the ground with a loud clank. Sakura then began to throw handfuls of kunai at Sasuke. These were no normal kunai, though. They had small pouches attached to the ends of them. None hit him, but instead landed on the ground near him.

He smirked. "Who were you aiming at? You missed." The smirk was wiped off of his face when he saw that each pouch had several exploding notes hidden inside. Sakura then threw a final kunai with an exposed exploding note attached to the end. "Sakura Fubiki no Jutsu!" The last note began to burn and cause the others to explode as well, resulting in a huge explosion. The arena was undamaged, as it had been designed to withstand most things. "As if."

Sakura then grabbed her head in pain. She had never used that jutsu since the first time, but her intuition had told her to use it. She remembered how she and Sasuke had been battling the snow ninja and how he had helped her come up with that jutsu. After that, all the memories came flooding back. How she and Ino became rivals over him. How she had devoted all of her time and energy into getting him to notice her. Being put on the same team as genin. Their first C mission and how she felt when she thought he was dead. Coming back and having him call her useless, only to have him recognize her as better than him with genjutsu and saying so in public. The Chuunin Exams and how they had faced Orochimaru together. Orochimaru giving Sasuke that seal and Sakura being forced to protect him. Cutting her hair to save him and nearly dying. Watching him fight while having his chakra stolen from him. His fight with Gaara and chasing him. Finding him and putting her life on the line to save him. Finding him injured again in the hospital and visiting everyday. Hugging him out of pure joy when Tsunade healed him. His fight with Naruto and how he had nearly hit her. The night he left and how she had been left on a bench with tearstained eyes. This memory came back most strongly and tears began to flow down her face. She looked at Sasuke with new eyes. "Oh, Sasuke-kun!"

Sasuke had managed to stand up after surviving the explosion. He had a smile on his face. "Took you long enough." She ran over to him with her arms outspread with tears still pouring from her eyes. When she reached him, instead of hugging him, she punched him in the face with a chakra infused fist. He went flying into the wall of the arena. "You bastard!" she screamed at him with tears still running down her face. "How dare you leave me on a bench?!" Sasuke struggled to stand back up. 'Yup, she remembers _everything_.' "You betrayed us!" Her face was turning red she was screaming so loudly at him and from cry so hard. "You nearly _kill _Naruto to go to that…that snake just to get enough power to kill Itachi-kun!" By now he had stood up. "All you ever do is use people!"

"Use people?" he questioned.

"Yes! You used me, Naruto, Kakashi, Orochimaru, Gaara, Ino, Shikamaru, Neji, Kiba, Lee, Tsunade, Kabuto, Sakon and Ukon, Kidomaru, Jirobou, and Tayuya just to name a few! Why would you go so far to rescue someone you've used and consider annoying?!"

"Because," he paused now scared. If he was ever going to say it, it might as well be now. "Ai…Aishiteru." Sakura looked surprised, then disgusted. "Liar, you thought that I would believe that and let you go, well you're wrong yet again."

Sasuke looked at her, shocked. "You don't believe me?!"

"Of course not. You said you wouldn't leave without me and you are trying to trick me into thinking that you actually care about me so I'd go. You made it clear long ago that you don't give a damn about me. The only reason you are interested in my well being is because Tsunade ordered you to bring me back." She said.

"How can you think that? Aishiteru kara kokoro!"

"You don't have a heart!" She screamed with more tears in her eyes. "I said the same thing and you told me your heart chose revenge! You don't care about anything or anyone! All you want is to kill Itachi-kun!"

Sasuke felt as though she had ripped his still beating heart out of his chest. Refusing to let her know this, he looked annoyed. "I'm not going to say it again if it means nothing to you."

"Good, because it was getting annoying. I mean nothing to you, and you mean nothing to me, so we're even."

Sasuke roared and looked ready to kill Sakura where she stood. She definitely struck a nerve and Tsunade said to bring her back; she never said that Sakura had to be alive. He powered up his Chidori again and charged at Sakura. She smirked and prepared to use a moved she knew would anger him even further, if possible. It would deplete her chakra to a mere quarter of its usual amount, seeing as wind was her weakest element.

"Rasengan!" Sakura had a ball of solid chakra in her hand and charged at Sasuke. Before he could touch her, she slammed her hand into his chest and through his heart. He coughed up blood and his Chidori fizzled away. He fell to the floor with a thud. Sakura had started to walk towards Itachi until she heard her name being called faintly.

"S…Sakura." he called. She turned and kneeled down beside him. He seemed to be struggling with something inside his pocket. He pulled out a small box and held it out to her. "Please, take it." He requested weakly. Out of the kindness in her heart, she too it and put it in one of her pockets. "And let me do this." He reached up with both hands and placed his fingers gently on her eyes, closing them. He transferred all of his remaining strength into them. After about a minute his hands fell from her eyes to the ground. His face was emotionless and he no longer moved. He was dead.

Sakura wailed and held her hands over her eyes. She felt as though her heart had been split in two. She fell onto his chest and cried even louder, tears soaking his shirt. Itachi watched this and wondered what to do. He eventually decided to let her grieve for a while, since he needed to do that too. A single tear ran down his face and fell to the floor.

Xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

After about twenty minutes, Itachi thought that Sakura had had enough time and needed to be comforted. Just as he was about to walk over to her, Shikamaru, Ino, and Chouji walked in through the gap in the wall. Once Sakura saw them, she stood up, wiped off her eyes and walked over to stand by Itachi. Itachi had placed genjutsu over the bodies so that Shikamaru, Ino, and Chouji wouldn't notice, and in case Sakura still needed more time to grieve.

"Ino-pig." Sakura said quietly.

"Forehead." She responded.

Before Shikamaru and Chouji could do anything, Itachi placed them in Tsukuyomi. The both fell to the ground unconscious in two seconds. Itachi immediately felt extremely fatigued, but not as much as he normally did after using that. His eyes also didn't hurt at all, and the usually were in agony from that. 'Sakura, arigato.' He thought gratefully.

Ino turned to see her fallen teammates, then looked at Itachi. "Sakura, you're…you're with h…him?!" Sakura nodded.

"You traitor!" she screamed. "I don't care what Tsunade said! You're coming with me, dead or alive!"

"I'd like to see you try, Ino-kohai." She sneered.

"You will pay for that!"

Sakura untied her headband in response. She retied it around her forehead. Not failing to notice the scratch through the leaf symbol, Ino retied hers around her forehead too.

"I'm gonna make you do then make you faint this time!" Ino shouted.

"Same to you!"

Both jumped backwards and prepared to fight each other. Sakura knew that Ino had been training to be a medic nin, but had started after she had. Other than medical abilities and Shitenshin, Sakura had no idea what other moves Ino knew.

Ino knew she was at a disadvantage. Even though Itachi appeared to have let them have their fight uninterrupted, she knew that he could jump in at any time. Also, Sakura had been training under the Godaime herself, and Ino still wasn't skilled enough to do that.

Sakura formed seals as fast as she could. "Mizu Bunshin no Jutsu!" **(Water Clone Jutsu)**

Sakura decided to end this quickly. "Suiton: Suirou no Jutsu!" **(Water Element: Water Prison Jutsu)** she yelled. Water began to form around Ino in a sphere. More and more water formed until Ino was trapped in a ball of water with Sakura's bunshin holding onto it with her hand. Ino looked up at her and gasped.

"Sakura, your eyes!"

Sakura gave Ino a slight glare. "What about them?"

"Y…You have the Sharingan!" she said, as though she didn't even believe her eyes. 'I have the Sharingan?' she thought confused. She just assumed that Ino was lying, but then she started to think. 'That would explain why I saw Ino move before she actually did. How…?' the realization almost brought tears to her eyes. 'That's what Sasuke was doing! Why did he do that?!'

Ino interrupted her thoughts, "How did you get it?"

" I'd rather not say, but you have lost to me in both ways you said you wouldn't. Ja ne, Ino." She said victoriously. "Raiton: Raikyuu!" She lightly touched the ball Ino was trapped in with the ball of lightning. The result was instantaneous. It turned into a gigantic ball of lighting, and Ino's chakra wasn't lightning based, so she couldn't defend herself. Sakura's bunshin exploded in a shower of sparks.

After about ten seconds, Sakura released the jutsu. She went over to Ino's body and knelt beside it. "You were my very best friend." She said quietly. "That is why this had to be done, because you were also my rival." Sakura began to tremble and seeing this Itachi walked over to her and held her tightly to his chest. She leaned closer to him as if he held the cure for her pain. He rubbed her back soothingly until she calmed down. "A…Arigato, Itachi-kun." She stuttered. He was about to hold her again but she stopped him. "I have to do something first." She began to form a hand seal for what felt like the billionth time that day. "Kage bunshin no Jutsu!" she yelled as a nearly perfect replica of herself appeared with a poof. The only thing it lacked was the lavender diamond on the forehead, and she didn't want it to have that anyway.

"You are to take Shikamaru and Chouji and find Naruto. Go back to Konoha with them and act as though you escaped. Go on missions as normal and act normal." She commanded. "Every night, when you are alone, make another Kage bunshin of yourself before disappearing. Now go!"

"Hai!" The clone then went to Shikamaru and Chouji. She draped Shikamaru over her shoulders and used her superhuman strength to carry Chouji. The clone left through the hole in the wall. "Doton: Doryuu Heki!" **(Earth Element: Earth Style Wall)** Sakura then spat mud on the ground right along the opening to the outside. A solid wall of earth began to rise from the part that she spit on, blocking the hole entirely. Sakura started to form more hand seals, but Itachi grabbed her hands.

"I can take it from here." He said gently and began to form the same seals Sakura was forming. "Katon: Housenka no Jutsu!" he said as he directed the fire to the edges of the wall, making it melt into the rest of the arena wall. When he'd finished, smoke was everywhere. Sakura was panting from earlier and inhaling smoke was not good. Due to exhaustion, Sakura collapsed.

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After assuring Itachi that she would be fine, Sakura walked to her room, deep in thought. She stuck her hands into her pockets and felt the box Sasuke had given her. 'Oh, I had forgotten about that.' When she was outside the door, she opened it quickly and shut it behind her. She didn't want anyone to see the box Sasuke had given her. She felt strangely protective over it. She strode to the other side of her room and sat on her bed. She turned the box over and over in her hands. It was small, very small like a watch or ring box. It was dark blue felt, and the top was slightly rounded.

"Looks like a regular ring box to me." She muttered. She opened it and gasped. It had a gorgeous gold necklace inside. The charm was a small flower with pink diamonds for petals and an emerald for the center. She flipped it over to see her name engraved on the back of the flower with a small Uchiha symbol carved next to it. A slip of paper fell out of the box. Sakura wiped the tears from her eyes and picked it up.

_Happy Birthday Sakura! I hope this isn't too 'forward'._

_Sasuke x_

The x had been written small, and almost in a shy way. More tears fell from Sakura's eyes as she put the necklace around her neck. She sat there breathing heavily until she choked out, "What have I done?"

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**Glad that's over with! I HATE typing out battles, and translating for the people who watch the english anime! Didn't translate the jutsus used all the time. (Honestly, Naruto uses Kage bunshin WAY too much) It was so hard trying to choose between my 2 fav couples! The end bit with Sasuke didn't end up the way I had originally planned but I think it's ok. Review please and tell whether this mega chapter was worth it or not! It killed me to kill Sasuke-kun! Ino...not so much. **

**By the way, here's some Japanese phrases in English.**

**Aishiteru - I love you**

**Aishiteru kara kokoro - I love you from the bottom of my heart**

**-kohai - Opposite of sensei, used to refer to someone lower in rank, though it is rather rude.**


	11. Guests of Honor

**I am the worst author ever!! It's been MONTHS since I updated, but I had to move over 6,000 miles. Packing and unpacking takes a while! Had house stuff to do and um...a video for youtube? Bad excuse but still. Please don't murder me in my sleep!**

**And those of you reviewers that said you weren't unhappy that Ino died, and were worried about offending me, that was nice and all but you can say whatever the hell you want about Ino! (except that she should be with Sasuke and/or Itachi, that will annoy me) I used to HATE her, but now it is simply REALLYREALLYREALLY dislike. (Sorry Ino fans!)**

**KB Sakura is Kage Bunshin Sakura, but that is a pain to type out.**

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A few days had passed since the infiltration of the hideout, and Sakura was seen making her way to Itachi's room. She wasn't sure whether this was a good idea or not. Asking Itachi how to activate the Sharingan might make him realize what Sasuke had done, and he would certainly hate her, but she needed to know. The fact that she couldn't remember Sasuke was another reason why she needed to see him.

She had the necklace that Sasuke had given her around her neck, but tucked under her shirt. What the others didn't know wouldn't hurt them. She always wore it as a constant reminder of what she had done. It tortured her, but she must never forget.

She arrived at his door much too soon for her liking and knocked quietly. She half hoped he wasn't there, but he opened the door. He looked at her concerned.

"Sakura? Are you alright?" he asked. "You don't look well."

"I'm fine." She answered a little too quickly. He raised an eyebrow in response. "I-I just needed to ask you some things."

'Not good, really not good!' he thought frantically. If she wanted to know about her memory…he would have a lot of explaining to do. "Sure, come in. I have something I needed to ask you as well."

He moved aside and allowed her to come in. His room was furnished with a large queen-sized bed with a dark wooden headboard and footboard. There was a small sitting area of to the side with several bookcases near it. A dresser made out of the same wood as the bed was on the other side of the room. It was dimly lit, but not gloomy, more lonely looking than anything.

Itachi motioned for her to sit. She sat awkwardly on the loveseat, while he sat on the sofa opposite her. "You first." He prompted. She nodded and swallowed hard. 'Well, I've lived a good life.' She thought, just in case this was her last day. 'Here goes.'

"Ano…I was wondering how…how you activate your Sharingan." She asked, clearly nervous. Itachi frowned. "What does that have to do with anything?" he asked suspiciously. He had a feeling that she was hiding something important from him.

She sighed. She hadn't wanted to tell him, but he left her with little choice. "The last thing Sasuke did before he…passed on was give his Sharingan to me." She told him and flinched afterwards, expecting him to strike her. He made no move to, but simply looked at her with an emotionless face.

'He wasn't lying when he said he loved her.' Itachi thought sadly. 'That was probably why he was so livid when he saw her with me. Of all things to give someone…'

He stood up and walked over to her. He knelt in front of her so he was at face level with her. She pressed herself into the back of the loveseat in fear. He reached out slowly and gently took her chin in his hand and made her face him. Her eyes were shining as though she could see her own death awaiting her. He looked her in the eye with gentle ones.

" Why do you think I will hurt you?" he asked her gently, now stroking her chin. He looked genuinely hurt that she would think that of him. Sakura looked at him in shock. Her brain had gone numb and her mouth was opening and closing like a fish. After a minute of no response he asked her again.

"I killed the person you love more than the world itself!" She sobbed and tears began to pour out from her emerald eyes. "I stole something precious to him! You should kill me, or at least hurt me!"

A look of surprise passed his face. She actually thought he would do that?! What kind of monster did she think he was?

"Sakura, I would _never_ intentionally harm you." He said sincerely. "I would've had to have killed him eventually, and you did what you thought was best. You were willing to taint your soul to make sure I would be okay. That is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me." He looked at her kindly, but also questioningly. "What kind of person would harm you for that?"

Sakura was speechless. "I-I-I…" she tried to speak, but couldn't. She was just so confused. He was…happy that she killed Sasuke?! "What kind of person is happy that their brother was murdered before their eyes?" she asked quietly. She sniffled and wiped the tears out of her eyes.

Itachi looked very hurt. She was completely missing the point and thought he was a terrible person. He struggled in figuring out what to say. "I wasn't happy." He started to explain. "Losing him was the worst thing that has ever happened to me." Hearing this, Sakura's green orbs began to fill with water. "Demo…" he made sure she was looking directly at him. "I would never forgive myself if I lost you too."

"Itachi-kun…" Tears fell yet again from Sakura's eyes and she flung herself into Itachi's arms. She buried her face in his chest and sobbed her heart out. Itachi hugged her tightly and held her close to him. After a while, she sniffled and looked up to him. "Do you really mean that?" He wiped the remaining tears from her eyes before answering. "Every word."

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KB Sakura was sprinting as fast as she could to get to Naruto. " Damn it Chouji, you need to lay off the barbecue!" she thought angrily. Dragging Shikamaru and Chouji while trying to find Naruto was exhausting. Eventually, she did the one thing that would probably make him come right to her.

"Naruto! Shikamaru and Chouji are hurt! Naruto! I need your help!" she yelled as loud as she could. As expected, within a minute Naruto was by her side.

"Sakura-chan! What happened? Where's Sasuke-teme, Ino and Kiki?" he demanded. Now, Sakura's Bunshins could do one thing that the real one couldn't; lie to the people she cared about. The real Sakura's weakness was that she cared too much and was unable to do anything to harm her friends. At least, that was the case when the heart freezing jutsu had worn off.

KB Sakura began to cry uncontrollably. Naruto looked at her alarmed. "Naruto, their dead. All of them! Itachi killed them all! I just managed to escape with these two." Naruto relieved KB Sakura of Shikamaru and Chouji. "There there Sakura-chan. It will be okay when we get back." He said soothingly. She nodded and they started to make their way back to the Fire Country.

"Sakura-chan, what did they have you do?" Naruto asked sounding worried. "I would rather only say it once; when Tsunade-shishou questions me." She replied politely. Naruto nodded. "Don't worry, Sakura-chan you won't be going back the them anytime soon!" KB Sakura smiled appreciatively. Her thoughts were a bit different though.

'That might be sooner than you think, Naruto.'

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"Sakura, I have something I need to ask you." Itachi said rather sternly. By now, Sakura had stopped crying and was sitting next to him on the sofa. Her eyes were still bloodshot from all the crying she had done, but she had calmed down considerably.

"Ask me anything, Itachi-kun." She replied cheerfully.

"How are you able to use all five elements?" he asked, sounding rather eager, for an Uchiha anyway. Sakura blinked confused. 'Now that's a weird question.'

"It's because I'm a Haruno." She said. The look on his face made her continue explaining. "As the name might suggest, Haruno are very skilled when it comes to using the elements. Even the least skilled is able to use three."

"Yet you are able to use five." He commented.

"Yes well, a few of us are able to, but it that ability does not come without constant, harsh training." She explained. "Even so, I can't use wind very well. It takes up too much of my chakra."

Itachi understood and he nodded, which irritated Sakura. 'No need to agree with me on that last part!' she thought furiously. "Does your clan have a Kekkei Genkai?" he asked her.

She sighed. "Not that I know of, but then again, no one in my clan has been a ninja for several generations. We are peace-loving, which was why my parents weren't overly supportive of my decision to become a shinobi."

"I see." He looked thoughtful. That made sense, and explained why her personality was the way it was. Then he asked a very random question. "Does everybody have pink hair?" Sakura raised an eyebrow before she started laughing uncontrollably. Itachi looked indignant. "I was being serious!" Getting a hold of herself, she answered him with teasing smile on her face. "Of course not! I'm the first in twenty years!" 'And probably the last.' She thought darkly.

"Is it really that rare?" he asked yet another question. "Is it really the first time you have heard about the Harunos?" she asked him, more to annoy him than anything. She deemed herself successful seeing as he looked annoyed.

"To be honest, yes." He admitted.

Sakura had a mischievous look in her eyes, and Itachi didn't like it one bit. "Well, Itachi-kun, you have a lot to learn."

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The next few days were quite trying for Itachi and Sakura. They were still the only ones in the hideout and they had been training almost non-stop, only stopping to eat and sleep. Sakura had been teaching Itachi how to use lightning jutsu and Itachi was teaching Sakura how to use her gift from Sasuke. Both were making little progress.

In Itachi's case, Sakura wasn't sure which element would be most suited to him because she didn't have any chakra paper, and he seemed most interested in learning lightning, so Sakura taught him about it. She would teach him a little about earth and wind to see if he made progress with either of those, but the results were the same as with lightning; a whole lot of nothing and a very frustrated Itachi.

In Sakura's case, Itachi wasn't exactly sure how to described Sharingan activation. If he knew how many tomoe were in hers, he could describe how she would be seeing. She had been trying and trying, but the Sharingan never came back to her eyes. The fact that she had killed her best friend made things even more complicated. If she somehow managed to activate it again, it might very well be the Mangekyou Sharingan. Unfortunately, there was no way she could control that on her first try, so she might accidentally kill both of them.

"Ok, Sakura let me try this again. Gather your chakra to your eyes." Itachi ordered. They were currently in the arena and it was Sakura's turn to train. As usual, her eyes hadn't even shown the slightest hint of going red. "How much chakra?" she asked him again. Everyday, the same orders with the same questions-

"A fair amount. The amount will decrease as you become more used to it." He said dully.

-With the same answers.

Sakura concentrated hard and gathered about half of her chakra to her eyes. She slowly opened her eyes and looked towards Itachi. He just shook his head. "No, your eyes are still green." She clenched her jaw in response.

"Well, maybe you didn't think of this Itachi-kun, but my Sharingan might be green!" she snapped.

"Your friend wouldn't have recognized it if it was green, so it had to be red!" he snapped back.

"Itachi-kun, I need a break." She announced before she went storming to her room. 'That temper will be your downfall.' He thought amusedly. Sakura slammed the door to her room shut with a bang. That man just made her so angry! He was arrogant, and cold, and annoying! Her angry thoughts stopped immediately when new information reached her. Her Kage Bunshin had just disappeared, leaving her with a lot to think about.

"Itachi-kun! Gomen nasai! I need you now!"

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KB Sakura had gotten back with Naruto and they both took Shikamaru and Chouji to the hospital before going to see Tsunade. KB Sakura had her story already prepared in her mind. Naruto was chatting away about what had happened since she left. After he finished talking about weddings and engagements, KB Sakura had to ask something.

"Naruto, did…did Sasuke-kun have anyone?" she asked quietly. He looked at her strangely but answered anyway. 'That's weird.' He thought confused. 'I thought teme would tell her the second he saw her.'

"No, Sakura-chan, he didn't." he said, then paused.

"Oh."

"No matter how many girls asked him out, he never would say yes. Even to the ones I suggested he go out with. His answer was always the same."

KB Sakura giggled. "No, right?"

Naruto scratched his head. "No actually, he always said…" he stopped to look at her. She looked back surprised. "He always said, 'I'm waiting for her to come back.'"

"Sasuke-kun said that about me?" she asked in shock. Naruto nodded vigorously. "He really did love you, ya know. Though he wouldn't admit it, I think it might've been your hair that got his attention."

She laughed. "My hair? I always thought he hated it. You didn't see the look on his face when he saw it cut short."

"It makes you unique Sakura-chan," Naruto explained. "The girls in the village all looked the same to him, except for you." KB Sakura brought a hand up to her eyes to wipe (fake) unshed tears away.

"Naruto, please, can we change the subject?" she requested. "How are Ayame and Teuchi doing?" That did the trick seeing as Naruto was rambling on about ramen now.

Once arriving at the Hokage Tower, KB Sakura could feel people's gazes burning into the back of her skull. She could hear people whispering behind their hands to each other as well. Naruto seemed oblivious to the atmosphere and kept smiling. KB Sakura paused outside Tsunade's office door, looking rather nervous. What if she had Ibiki interrogate her? Then they would know that she was a fake immediately. Naruto saw her expression and tried to help by knocking for her.

"It'll be okay, Sakura-chan. Tsunade-baachan is fond of you, so it won't be too bad." He consoled her. She nodded more to herself then him.

"Come in." a muffled voice called. KB Sakura gulped and opened the door and stepped in. She noticed that the office looked exactly the same. Paperwork all over the place, bottles suspiciously shaped like sake bottles were on her desk, and the woman behind it looked as though she had just woken up. Tsunade saw Sakura and looked surprised.

"Sakura? Is that you?" she asked. She noticed how much older Sakura looked, as though she had seen all the sorrow in the world. She had definitely gotten some curves over the years too…

KB Sakura smiled. "Yeah, it's me shishou."

Naruto laughed at Tsunade's question. "You really _are_ getting old Tsunade-baachan! You can't even recognize your student!" A vein in Tsuande's temple popped and looked like she wanted to hit Naruto, but she didn't get the chance to.

"SHANNARO!! BAKA!!"

Naruto went flying through the closed door and landed with a loud crash in the wall across from it. KB Sakura wasn't done. She marched over to him and began to shake him by his collar while yelling at him. Tsunade smirked. 'That's her alright.'

After about five more minutes, KB Sakura stopped yelling and walked back towards Tsunade to tell her about what had happened to her. Naruto didn't follow, because of his newly acquired concussion.

She told Tsunade everything about how genjutsu had been placed on her, which tricked her into leaving. Then how the Akatsuki had kidnapped her and forced to be their medic. Of course she told her that Orochimaru had taken her prisoner, and had made her fight to the death against Kabuto. She told her how she had escaped and killed him in the process, only to be found by the Akatsuki again. She had difficulty telling her about how Itachi had killed everyone, seeing as she kept crying when she tried to talk about it. Tsunade was silent until she had finished her story.

"Sasuke, Kikimandai, and Ino are dead?" she asked, as though she couldn't believe it. KB Sakura merely nodded. Tsunade sighed. 'Now I have a memorial service to plan. They were good shinobi, they deserve it.'

"Sakura, I hate to do this to you, but pack your things. You and Naruto have been invited by Kazahana Koyuki of the Snow Country to come to a banquet as the guests of honor."

KB Sakura blinked in a confused way, but nodded. "When do I have to leave?"

"Tomorrow morning."

"Hai." KB Sakura walked out the door to where Naruto was still sitting. "If you want a better autograph, you'd better be fine by tomorrow morning." She whispered threateningly. He looked at her like she had grown two heads. She smirked before walking away.

Once arriving at her house, she immediately made another Kage Bunshin.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" a small poof and cloud of smoke later, a replica of herself stood beside her. Satisfied, she disappeared to inform her real self of the news.

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**Ok, I know it was mindless ItaSaku fluff, but the story lacked it, so it had to go in somewhere. And if you haven't seen the first Naruto movie...go watch it! I would really like it if SOME (cough all cough) of you would press the review button!**


	12. Reunion

**BLAME THE SCHOOL!! NOT ME!! They are the reason why I haven't updated!! That's why updates might take a bit longer than the did before too, but I will try to get them up ASAP!! Yes, school has a bad habit of assigning tons of homework when i was planning on updating.**

**On a side note, I saw the cutest, fluffiest ItaSaku video ever on Youtube!! Go there and type in "ItaSaku Hey Juliet" without the quotes. Only one video shows up, so click it. **

**Again really sorry for the late update!**

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Itachi smirked when he heard Sakura yelling for him. 'She doesn't usually apologize _that_ quickly.' He thought, rather amused by this. He headed towards her room while taking his sweet time. No sense in rushing in case she had another mood swing and suddenly hated him again. When he reached her door he knocked three times.

"Why do you even bother knocking? I always say come in!" was the annoyed response. Itachi didn't open the door, he talked through it instead, smirking all the while.

"You could be getting changed." He said reasonably. This seemed to irritate Sakura even further, seeing as she stomped across the small room to open the door. She flung it open and it banged against the wall loudly. She shot it a nasty glare before turning to Itachi.

"And why would I be changing when I said I needed a break?" she asked irritably. "I wasn't going to quit, so there would be no point." Itachi just shook his head. There was no reasoning with her when she was in this sort of mood. He decided to get to the point.

"What did you need me for?" he questioned dully. This seemed to snap Sakura out of her bitterness and she suddenly looked excited. To other people, this was crazy, but to people who were used to her, she was just being Sakura. Not surprised by her instant mood change, Itachi walked in and sat on her bed lazily, as though he owned the place. Sakura just stood in the center of the room, pacing while filling Itachi in on what her Kage Bunshin had learned.

"Itachi-kun, we have an awesome opportunity right in front of us!" she started to explain excitedly. Itachi raised an eyebrow.

"Slow down, I didn't catch all that." He told her. She bowed her head slightly.

"Gomen, but we are really in luck!" she exclaimed, slower than before. She stopped talking and pacing, and was looking at him, so he knew she wanted a response. He also knew that if he gave none, she wouldn't tell him what happened and would begin to teach him lightning jutsu by demonstrating on _him_, so he gave her what she wanted.

"And why are we in luck, Sakura? He asked her, sounding bored with all this. She sighed.

"Because, we have a chance to get the Kyuubi!" she explained as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. He was mildly shocked by the news, but he hid it well.

"And that chance would be…?" She sighed even louder and more obviously this time, making him narrow his eyes a bit at her.

"Naruto, and I were invited to the Snow Country for a banquet." She explained to him. He said nothing, so she continued. "That means we can intercept him on his way there!" Itachi still didn't look excited, in fact he didn't even smile. He frowned actually, which caused Sakura to frown. "Itachi-kun what is it?" she asked.

"Sakura, you're forgetting something." He said lowly. She blinked. "Nani?" 'I told him everything, so what is he talking about?' she thought confused.

"Do you honestly think that Naruto-kun will be allowed to go all the way to the Snow Country alone?" he asked her. Her response was quick and sharp. "I'll be with him! Or…well… my clone will be, so to them he won't be!"

Now it was Itachi's turn to sigh. " They know that we are after him, and by we I mean the whole group." He told her slowly. "Quite a few ANBU will probably be going with him."

Sakura tutted. "Tsk, tsk, Itachi-kun you were always the worry-wart." He scowled at her, which made her enjoy herself even more. "Tsunade-sama never said anything about the ANBU, and she would've told her favorite student. Besides, she knows I can handle myself and keep Naruto in line." She smiled sweetly at him, and she could just imagine steam coming out of his ears, like in a cartoon.

"Well, we can go I guess," Itachi admitted in defeat. Sakura smile changed from sickeningly sweet to triumphant. "But it won't be as easy as you think." He added. Sakura just rolled her eyes playfully. "Now, what would make you say a thing like that, Itachi-kun?"

Itachi was becoming increasingly irritated by the moment. "He will have to see your clone fight at some point, so he would know your abilities, whereas you don't know how much he improved over the years."

Now, Sakura felt insulted but she didn't let her face give it away. "He won't see my clone fight and," she paused to tap the lavender diamond on her forehead. "He doesn't know about this, so I can take anything he throws at me." She assured him.

"That shortens your lifespan, you know." He commented. She plastered a smile on her face. "Yes I know that. I will avoid using it because of that." Then she just realized a different interpretation of what he said. "Oh, Itachi-kun, you were worried about me, weren't you?" she cooed. Itachi stared at her in confusion at her sudden change in tone. 'Huh? What is she _on_?'

"Why didn't you just say so before?" Sakura trotted over to Itachi and gave him a quick hug. Before pulling away she said, "But you don't have to get so worked up about my safety, Itachi-kun, I can handle myself." The look on Itachi's face was unreadable, and Sakura knew that that was never a good thing. 'Ok, it's time for Itachi-kun to go.' She thought.

"I need to pack my things now, Itachi-kun."

Itachi got the message and left the room without another word. He quickly walked to his room, though there was little reason to do so; it took Sakura _forever _to pack. Once he got to the safety and quiet that his room promised, he began to say his thoughts out loud.

"Damn that woman!" he flat out yelled. His walls were soundproof, so he knew that he could say whatever the hell he wanted without anyone knowing. "She is so God damned annoying! Can't she at least be consistently mad or happy with me for five minutes?" Itachi sat down on the edge of his bed and massaged his temples lightly. He knew she was just messing with him, but why did it annoy him so much? Not to mention the feeling he had when she hugged him. It didn't feel…normal. This was just a normal reaction to all of that, right?

After the door closed and she could no longer here Itachi's footsteps, Sakura burst out laughing. "Oh, Kami-sama, it actually worked!" she laughed even harder. "That's what he gets for trying to mess with me!" Giggling all the while, Sakura went to go grab her bag and began to pack. "Oh, he's gonna hate me, though!" In reality, she wasn't too concerned about him hating her. All he ever did before when he was mad was answer all of her questions with 'Hn.', which annoyed her, but he never did anything else. Despite the entertaining part of her time with Itachi, something felt different. It was hard to explain. Just being around him, the air she breathed felt different than around anyone else, it was almost as if she had trouble breathing. But that was perfectly normal, it happened to everyone…didn't it?

Putting that aside, Sakura closed her bag and decided that she had everything she needed. Throwing her now full bag over her shoulder, she made for her door to go tell Itachi she was ready. When she opened the door, she was surprised to see him outside it, about to knock. Once he saw her, he put his hand down hastily. Sakura chose to spare him and ignored this. Instead, she tried to motivate him.

"Let's go get that Kyuubi!"

"Hn."

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Early the next morning, KB Sakura was impatiently tapping her foot by the gate out of the village. Her and Naruto were supposed to have left ten minutes ago, but he never showed up. Under normal circumstances, she would've left him behind, but she was a girl with a mission. Sakura's kage bunshin put their mission first, a nice trait that came in handy.

KB Sakura turned her head when she heard panting and the sound of running footsteps. Naruto was running towards her with a gigantic bag on his back. The fact that he was able to stand, let alone run with it, made KB Sakura smile slightly. When Naruto was in front of her, his hands were on his knees and was out of breath.

"G…Go…Gomen Sa…Sakura-ch…. chan!" He'd run so much that he couldn't even talk without panting in between words. " What on earth did you put in there?!" KB Sakura asked incredulously. Naruto smiled mischievously, exhaustion forgotten.

"I finally figured out what you meant yesterday so…" KB Sakura raised an eyebrow and reached a hand in his bag. It felt like the whole thing was full of unusually thick pieces of paper. This spiked KB Sakura's curiosity and made her suspicious, so she grabbed one slip and pulled it out. The stupidity of what is was made KB Sakura laugh loudly.

"Baka! I didn't mean take hundreds of pictures of yourself for an autograph!"

Naruto looked indignant. "But, you see, I had to take a good one, and all of them are good shots of me, dattebayo!" That last word made KB Sakura frown. 'Will he ever, _ever, _stop saying that?!'

"Naruto, pick one." She ordered.

Naruto's smile faded and now he looked confused. "Nani? Pick one what?"

"One picture. Get rid of the rest."

"Kedo, kedo, DOOSHITE?!" he yelled the last word right in KB Sakura's ear. The fact that she didn't disappear in a cloud of smoke right then was a miracle to KB Sakura. She closed her eyes tightly from the pain in her ears.

"Because I said so, Naruto. Do it!" Naruto muttered some things better left unsaid under his breath and began to dig through his bag; trying to decide which one he was going to take. Surprisingly enough, it took him about thirty seconds to pick.

"Definitely this one!" he said at last. KB Sakura glanced over and saw that it was a picture of him with the Hokage's hat on. He was doing the peace sign and was smiling from ear to ear. In the other hand he was a piece of paper that said, 'Take this teme!' She just shook her head. 'I don't even want to know how drunk Tsunade-sama was when he took it!' Naruto had never called Sasuke teme in front of Sakura before, so she had no idea who he meant.

"Can we go now?" she asked him annoyed. He ran ahead of her, so she took that as a yes. 'Have fun while you can Naruto,' she thought evilly. 'Have fun while you can.'

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After a night of hearing Naruto talk all about the kinds of ramen he was going to eat at the banquet and telling KB Sakura that she was wrong, and there would be ramen, the two started traveling again early that morning.

If KB Sakura's calculations were correct, she would be meeting her real self and Itachi later this morning. She had considered drugging Naruto's food, but she had never gotten the chance. She could tell that the fight was going to take a while. In the meantime, though, she was being rather nice to Naruto. Enjoying his company while she could.

"Naruto, what would you do if your friend became bad?" she asked suddenly. Naruto frowned. "You mean like with Sasuke?" She considered that for a moment, then nodded. "Try to get them to come back, of course!" he said brightly.

KB Sakura wasn't satisfied with that answer, so she changed her question. "Even if they killed someone close to you and committed terrible crimes?" Naruto looked deep in thought. "Sakura-chan, I don't know. It would depend on the circumstances and stuff like that." She nodded understandingly. "Why do you ask?" he sounded suspicious now. "Just wondering." She answered in a small voice.

They walked in silence for a while now. KB Sakura tried to lighten the mood. "Do you think you'll really get an autograph?" Naruto looked at her like she was insane. "Duh!" He started to prattle on about how he was going to ask for one, and what she would write, and how Hinata would be happy for him for quite a while.

Naruto stopped when he saw two figures coming down the same road from the opposite direction. "Naruto what-?" He clasped a hand over her mouth and pulled her off of the road and into some bushes. He said only one word to her. "Akatsuki." She gasped underneath his hand. She looked and he was indeed right. There were two people clothed in black cloaks with dark red clouds, and they were wearing hats that had blind-type veils hiding he face. It was impossible to distinguish which to members they were. The only thing anyone could be sure of was that neither of them were Zetsu.

"Naruto," KB Sakura whispered, "Which two is it?"

"Sakura-chan, I was hoping you'd know!" he whispered back. "But I'm sure one of them is Itachi."

"Uchiha Itachi…" KB Sakura growled. She closed her eyes for a second longer than necessary then asked more calmly, "Does that mean that the taller one is Kisame?"

Naruto shook his head. "No, the taller one is Itachi. I don't know who the short one is." KB Sakura pouted a little. 'I'm not _that_ short!' Luckily, Naruto didn't noticed and was still focusing on the approaching Akatsuki.

The two Akatsuki were now standing right in front of Naruto's and KB Sakura's hiding place. The shorter one pointed right at Naruto and the taller one nodded.

"Come out, Naruto-kun." The taller one said.

KB Sakura looked over at him and saw him start to stand up, so she mirrored him. The two of them walked out and went to stand across form the Akatsuki members.

"Itachi…" Naruto spat, sounding like the very name meant murderer. "It's time to come with us." Itachi said in response. He had taken his hat off, though Naruto couldn't remember when he had. The shorter of the two had kept his on.

The short one's lack of speech made Naruto angry. "Who's us?!" he yelled while pointing at the short one. Itachi and the short one both looked at each other before nodding.

The short one slowly reached a hand up to the hat and tossed it carelessly to the side. A full head of pink hair tumbled down from the top of her head and blew in the wind. Green eyes studied Naruto carefully, but she did not speak.

"SAKURA-CHAN?!" he yelled even louder than before. The said woman winced at the noise. Naruto looked to the side of him that KB Sakura had been standing on to see no one. She had vanished while Naruto wasn't paying attention, so when Naruto searched for her with his eyes; he found no sign of her.

"What the hell is going on?!"

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**I do have a bad habit of cliffys! There will be at least 4 more chapters, so don't think it will end anytime soon! And...um...that's really it other than REVIEW!! (though I've been bad and don't deserve reviews T.T)**


	13. Naruto's Surprise

**Yup! I'm back from the dead! I FINALLY got around to updating! Thank you kind reviewers for not hating me for the slow updates, I REALLY appreciate that!!! Enough of me, onto the chapter!**

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"Naruto, you still haven't figured it out?" Sakura asked him. Itachi and Sakura were still standing opposite of Naruto. Naruto continued to have a confused look on his face while staring at Sakura. She wasn't quite sure of what to do in this situation, since attacking a ninja when he is in a similar state to Naruto's was beyond low.

"Itachi-san..?" Sakura never dared to add the kun honorific in battle. He appeared not to hear her and was watching Naruto intently. In other words, wait.

"Sakura-chan…" Naruto looked like he was having trouble believing what he saw and was trying to deny it. "Dooshitte?" Sakura smirked. That wasn't exactly what she had been hoping he'd say, but it would work.

"Why what?" She started to evaluate the area for the fight ahead. It was a simple dirt road with the edge of a cliff on the left and a forest of trees on the right. The road was small, and there were to guard rails on the cliff side. Naruto seemed to be favoring the side with the trees, probably to escape, she guessed. Naruto was a close range fighter, and because the area was small, this seemed to be a good place for him. Sakura was a close to mid range fighter, but the trees would be problematic. Itachi was also a close range fighter, so he should have little trouble. There was no water around, so Suiton attacks were out of the question; it would take too much chakra. Katon would be the way to defeat Naruto, because fire is stronger than wind. That also meant that any Raiton attacks weren't going to be an option, since wind is stronger than lightning.

Sakura then started to think of a battle plan. First off, those trees would have to go. They made her style of taijutsu more difficult. A little fire should take care of that. If Naruto used Kage Bunshin, then Sakura could mimic that. Her Rasengan was nowhere near as strong as Naruto's, so she would have to counter that by grabbing his wrist when he attacked. Her thoughts were interrupted when Naruto answered her question with one of his own.

" Why are you doing this?" He asked it much more gently than he probably should have. Instead of looking at Sakura, he appeared to be much more interested in watching Itachi, though he seemed to find his chin more intriguing than his eyes.

Sakura found this to be a rather unoriginal question, but she still had to think a little to come up with the answer.

"I was weak, and I fixed that." Naruto had torn his eyes from Itachi's chin and was now looking at Sakura in shock.

"The Godaime was training you! You've become so much stronger since we were Genin dattebayo!" His voice now sounded as though he was pleading with her.

She sighed. "For a while, yes. Then Tsunade started having Shizune train me more, because she was too busy. After a while, I hardly ever trained with Tsunade. To top it off, my number of missions had been declining the entire time. I was a toy that Tsunade got bored with and she tossed me aside." She straightened her posture and her voice was stronger as she continued. " So I left."

The surprise was plain on Naruto's face. Even Itachi didn't know this much about the matter of Sakura leaving Konoha, so his eyes widened almost imperceptibly.

Naruto would not give up, so he tried to make Sakura's decision sound stupid. "Baa-chan has sent ANBU after you! For five years people have been looking for you! Team 7 _and_ Team 10 were sent after you! And you know what? _He _killed them! Yet you still stand by his side!" He had become more passionate about his speech, so much that he was yelling by the end of it.

"No…"

"What do you mean no, Sakura-chan?!"

She had said it so quietly she was surprised that anyone had even heard her. "Itachi-san didn't kill them." Her voice was barely above a whisper.

"Oh yeah? Then who did? Kisame? Deidara? Hidan? Kakuzu?" Naruto was still as loud as ever, only now he was getting angry.

"I did."

Naruto chuckled a bit. "Sakura-chan, you have no reason to take the blame for what he did!"

"I did it."

"Sakura-chan there is no way you-" He stopped talking abruptly. While he had been talking Sakura had stuck her hand under her cloak and shirt, until she felt the delicate chain around her neck. She hesitated for second before pulling it out to where everyone could see. Both Naruto and Itachi were staring at the beautiful charm.

"S-Sakura-chan…"

"Sakura."

"I did it!" Sakura's voice was strong and she sounded sure of herself. She could tell from Naruto's reaction that he knew exactly what it was. His eyes were the size of dinner plates as he processed the information revealed to him. The fact that one of his best friends in the world had killed his other best friend was a lot to think about.

Although his reaction wasn't as noticeable as Naruto's, Itachi's eyes were noticeably wider. Unlike Naruto, he _didn't_ know what the necklace meant, or why Naruto was acting the way he was, so he was trying to figure it out. To a passerby, he looked impassive. To the people who know him, he looked flat out confused.

She hadn't wanted Itachi to know about it, but Naruto had left her with little choice. She figured that this would put a stop to Naruto's questions.

"Sakura-chan… so you really…?"

"Yeah."

"Kiki, and Ino too?"

"Yeah."

Naruto's mouth was opening and closing, but no sound was coming out. He looked like he was getting angrier and angrier and was having trouble controlling it. Itachi was still staring at Sakura's neck, even though she had tucked the necklace away.

"Sakura-chan…Baa-chan won't even consider taking you back." Naruto said this sadly, as though he finally realized what he would have to do.

"I know." She responded gently.

Naruto swallowed before he said anything else. "I can't allow you to walk away with him. Actually, I can't allow you to walk away alive.

"Then come with us Naruto-kun." Itachi finally spoke up. He knew that if a fight broke out it had to be as quick as he and Sakura could make it. If it dragged on, the Kyuubi might make its appearance, and that would push Itachi to the limits. He said it calmly, but he knew what Naruto would say.

He was right.

"Never dattebayo!" Naruto started yelling again. "I would never betray my friends like that! I know what you did to Gaara, and there's no way that's happening to me! I'd rather have to fight until I die!"

"So be it." Sakura sighed and pulled her gloves on. Naruto put his hands in a very familiar symbol.

"Kage bunshin no-"

He didn't get a chance to finish because he felt a cold metal against his neck. Itachi and Sakura were still standing in front of him, but while he had been preparing to mold his chakra, Itachi had had a kage bunshin of his own appear behind Naruto.

"Surrender, Naruto-kun."

"Hell no!"

Itachi pressed the kunai into Naruto's neck to have him turning into a cloud of smoke. Instinctively, he activated his Sharingan when he looked up. Shockingly enough, Naruto was flying towards him with a Rasengan in his hand. Itachi leapt backwards and where he had been a second before was a huge crater. Naruto sprang out of the crater towards Itachi. Both Itachi and Sakura bean forming seals.

Two voices rang out at the same time. "Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu!"

Two ridiculously large fireballs flew towards Naruto. He jumped to the left and watched the fireballs devastate the forest. Instead of a lush, green, beautiful forest there was a field of black.

Naruto now had another Rasengan in his hand, only this time he was charging towards Sakura. She just stood there until he was within her reach. She grabbed the wrist he had the Rasengan in and it was held uselessly in front of her nose. He was struggling to get it to hit, but to no avail; his hand was not going anywhere. Naruto glared at Sakura. His eyes bored into hers, until the world started to swirl. The blues and greens of this world turned into the blacks and reds of Itachi's Tsukuyomi world. After a little, the swirling stopped, and everything was red and black. Naruto as tied to a stake and Itachi was towering over him.

"This isn't real! This isn't real! Sakura-chan doesn't have the Sharingan!" Naruto shook his head the entire time. He quickly put his hands into a seal. "Kai!" Nothing happened.

"It may not be real, Naruto-kun, but the pain will be." Itachi, not Sakura, still stood in front of Naruto. "Sakura and I both preformed a Henge no Jutsu before we even encountered you. There would be no reason not to look Sakura in the eyes."

Naruto refused to believe it. "This can't be!"

"But it is, Naruto-kun. Now you will watch your friends fight to the death for 72 hours." As soon as he finished speaking, Sasuke and Sakura appeared before Naruto.

"Sasuke-teme! Sakura-chan!" Both appeared to have not heard him.

"Neither of them can see, hear, or feel us, Naruto-kun. Crying out is useless."

Naruto then had to watch Sakura's encounter with Sasuke in the Akatsuki base. He heard their entire conversation. He saw Sakura kill Sasuke, but not what Sasuke had given her. After he had survived watching it once, Naruto was forced to watch it over and over and over again, like a CD stuck on replay. By the third time, he was screaming for mercy. By the seventh, he wasn't even conscious anymore.

After the 72 hours, true to his word, Itachi released him from the genjutsu. Sakura watched as Naruto's figure suddenly slumped into Itachi's arms unconscious. From Sakura's perceptive, it appeared that Naruto was struggling to hit Itachi, then had simply stopped moving. Less than a second later, he had become limp.

Sakura and Itachi needed to contact Pein about their defeat of the loud Jinchuuriki. They need to get to a more secluded place before they did anything, because people traveling on the road would recognize there cloaks, and that would be awfully troublesome. Another reason why is if Naruto woke up, he would have to be knocked out again, and Sakura had the feeling that he wasn't going to let them do that without putting up a fight.

"Itachi-san, we need to get to a more secure location before sealing the Kyuubi." She said suddenly business-like. "I can carry him."

"Hn."

Itachi handed Naruto over to Sakura. She threw him over her shoulder and proceeded to carry him like a sack of potatoes. She frowned at the new weight. 'Geez, he really needs to lay off of the ramen!'

"Itachi-san? Where would the best place be for the sealing? I don't know my way around the Waterfall Country all that well." She started tapping her lip with her forefinger while looking a little embarrassed.

He looked at her impassively. "The place I know of is at least half a day away."

Sakura groaned. Itachi was in a bad mood, and not happy with her, not to mention Naruto was heavy, and there was no way she'd admit that to Itachi.

"I can tell this will be a fun trip."

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**And that's the end of this update. As you can see, I really cannot write battles very well, nor do I like writing them, so please forgive that. Reviewing would be nice too! Tell me what you think, and tell me what you didn't like as well! Cookies for everyone who reviews!**


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